The Kerry Man Cannot Be Fooled!

(Editor’s note: Just so our reader gets a little dry behind the ears we wanted to reprint a joke heard in Dingle a few years back…)

An American balloonist took off from London and headed west over the Irish sea as planned. He passed over Dublin, then Kilkenny but when he attempted his descent he was pushed and pulled by gusty winds and sent farther west of his destination. Concerned, he made the proper adjustments but still continued to flow west. Soon, after dropping some elevation he found himself over what appeared to be County Kerry, drifting out in to the open Atlantic and big trouble. Just as he passed over what he thought was the Dingle Peninsula he saw a Kerryman out working in his fields. As a last resort he yelled down to the man: “Excuse me sir but…but where am I?” The man looked up, surprised and responded, “You can’t fool me. You’re up in that little basket hanging from a hot air balloon.”

“You Narrowback, bog-trotting, two toilet Irish sombitch.” – Tim “Pegleg” McMonahan to his brother, James, when the two reunited after a pleasant ocean voyage on Tchapatoulis Street in New Orleans in 1843.