Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the opening of the first new town in Ireland since Shannon and Craigavon. Yes, its time to throw open the gates of Baile an Táicsigh (Toxic Town ), the town where we promise to bring you the best of the worst, where you are guaranteed to get the worst service, where the roads will be the worst, the pint will be terrible, where the spittoons will never be emptied and where in order to make the rest of the country look great, we are going to feck everything bad. In demographic terms, it will be like the child in the back room of the olden days. The motto for this town will be ‘Hors de la vue, hors de l'esprit‘ (out of sight, out of mind ) and by doing this, everywhere else in the country can feel good about itself.
Let’s be honest now. We’re all a bit down about everything these days and anything that make us feel better has to be considered. We all have parts of our communities that w e could do without. And fair play to Fianna Fail for coming up with the idea of the toxic bank and the toxic loans.
Now we don’t have an exact location for this toxic town, but somewhere in the general direction of Kiltimagh and western Roscommon would seem suitable for us to create this new town on the basis that much of the basic infrastructure is already in place.
All the dodgy builders and plasterers can start work on the construction of the town as soon as possible, inside the next month, ma’am, or as soon as we can get away from another job.
Once it has been built, we can set about filling the place.
Get along to your local schools and ensure it finishes way up the league table. Find out those messers at the back of the class, make sure they’re not the offspring of doctors, solicitors or members of the board of management, and then feck them out. And send them to the brand new school in Baile an Táicsigh where they can mess away to their hearts’ content and where when they leave at 15, we can get them an Anco course in welding or a one-way boat ticket to Holyhead.
Is your priest boring you with extra long sermons that are a little too ecclesiastical and not enough Eastenders? Well then put his name down for a diocesan change to the new new Chapel of the Godhelpus in Baile an Táicsigh. We need fire, brimstone and lengthy sermons in Baile an Táicsigh
Are you embarrassed by the efforts of those in your local GAA club?” Those fellas who play Junior B and who turn up every Sunday morning stinking of stale beer and fags can be shipped out, so that they won’t be a bad influence on the talented minors. Send all your bad Junior B players to Baile an Táicsigh.
No town is complete without its hurlers on the ditch, the miserable hungers who think they know all, but who in reality know feck all. Send them all to Baile an Táicsigh. Here they can contaminate one another, and in time can be trained to be taxi drivers.
Ugly people. Are you fed up chatting up hot young men and women only to be denied advancement by the presence of their ugly friend who “has a great personality.” Why do we do this when the Poles don’t? Well, then it’s time to round up all the ugly people and ship them to Baile an Táicsigh where at discos they can hang around together and actually feel a lot better about themselves.
In time, Baile an Táicsigh will become an icon in Irish culture and Bord Failte will relent and will be bussing in the tourists (if only to reunite them with all those terrible B and B owners from the past ). It’s time to isolate all that’s wrong with our country and put it all into one town. Only then, can we start to rebuild our nation. Now line up, line up. The bus is leavin’ soon.
Declan Varley [email protected]
