JANUARY — the year gets off to a flying start when the words 'Oh feck' are uttered collectively by two million as the January wage sheets are handed out and the true realisation of the Budget kicks in... Sky Sports reports a massive number of calls to their cancellation centre...sales of lattes are decimated...hair extensions are returned to the rats who sold them during the good times...the lights are turned off...Our working class hero Anglo Avenger Trucker Joe, who hasn't mounted a protest using building equipment for what must be weeks now, attacks Anglo ATMs with an angle grinder. He is arrested again for the usual few hours, but despite his latest effort, Cadbury's say that he is not their man for the new Milk Tray ad...back to the drawing board for the caped crusader. It snows and rains and freezes.
FEBRUARY — Valentine’s Day is a damb squib in Ireland as homemade cards are the order of the day...The best seller is “I don't love ya, but I can't afford to leave ya.” The election campaign gathers apace and Biffo goes to the country. For the weekend. The Anglo Avenger attempts to land a chopper on the roof of Dail Eireann, but does it on a Friday when there's nobody there and ends up on the roof of the National Museum...He's arrested for 20 minutes and then freed under the Unlawful Detention of Developers Act 2007...Election date is announced for mid-March. It rains again. For a month.
MARCH — The St Patrick's Day parade concides with the General Election campaign. All the candidates are asked to dress as leprechauns and Irish peasants. Some come as they are. Best float goes to the Anglo Avenger who parades using all the equipment he has used to protest with, so far. Fianna Fail get scuttled in the election. Even the minors don't win... Andrea Bocelli belts out Time to Say Goodbye for Biffo...There are loads of new faces in both of Galway's constituencies...Enda becomes Taoiseach, Mayo's first since Charlie. In his speech he says “Enda Kenny is a happy man today, so he is. I know cos he told me so, didn't ya Enda.” Eamonn Gilmore is ecstatic as well, saying “I haven't been this happy since the Killimor U-14s wanted that scrap of land to park their bikes outside the school that was never built”...Mary Harney retires from politics, with a grand pension and a massive cheque from Newstalk who libelled her - different station, different compensation ...There is dancing in the streets at the election of a new government...the king is dead, long live the king and then the massive realisation sets in that this crowd look just like the others, just with funny accents like Leo Viagrar and Michael Noonan.
APRIL – Now that the election is out of the way, the race for the presidency gets underway. Michael D launches his campaign with a presumptious victory poem “I guard that candle in the window, it's flame a light for all lost in the mist of time. I feel that pride, until I realise, with shocking calm, that I am alas, just one of many Limerickmen in Government accommodation in Dublin. And then I cry and hear the call of the people saying c’mereIwantcha”. He is pushed hard by Mairead McGuinness who proves that there can be such a thing as a “pain in the Aras”...Arthur’s Day is moved forward to April and coincidentally clashes with the national Census, so nobody’s home. As a result, Ireland’s population falls below 100,000 for the first time since the Neolithic age. Sun shines at last. On a Tuesday. Around teatime.
MAY – The Anglo Avenger is offered his own TV series on TG4. An Fear Bhocht (Bhfoct ) shows him scaling trip wires to enter Government Buildings against the clock. Local celebrities (TG4 weathergirls and their sisters ) then vie to guess if he will complete the task on time and win prizes such as a night out in Galway with the caped one or Daithi what’s his name...
JUNE The Salthill Airshow returns with a scaled down Airfix model plane event, but the Galway Alliance Against Everything suggests that it is an aberration of peaceful thinking and warns that “these things can take your eye out, ya know.” And as for that glue...73-year-old Padraic Joyce stars again as Galway win the Connacht Football Title but with three captains, there is a row over who should lift the cup...
JULY — The Arts Festival is a resounding success. The opening night of the hit show The Envelope is attended by the same hordes of TG4 girls and Connacht rugby players who are more famous for attending openings than crossing lines...Druid produce some other auld maudlin stuff about some wailing auld wan (played by Marie Mullen ) losing all her sons to some terrible STD caught off the local girl who's home from England...critics flown in from New York and Boston and kept inebriated in Neachtains for a week hail it as “the best thing that I've never seen, ever.`” The Galway Races gives the city a much needed boost. However even the hookers servicing the event are forced to introduce a sign of the times offer called the AJ Chopra Blindfold IMF Special in which punters wear a scarf over their eyes during orgies... Spokeswoman Irina Legova says it is called that to reflect the bailout in that you know you're being screwed, just you don't know who by.
AUGUST – Following Stephen Fry's outstanding cameo appearance on Ros na Rún, producers pull another stroke when Brad Pitt plays a long lost son of Tadhg home from Bosh-ton for the claiming of the land, like. He is credited as Breandan Piota...work starts on the Volvo village at the docks...City Council propose bringing back the tanks...for the craic.
SEPTEMBER
It's Ironman time and Galway is awash with thin men and women wearing tiny swimming briefs and cycling bikes with very sharp saddles. Ouch! That’s why they have those strained expressions and smiles...Galway hurlers get to the All-Ireland final and star in Pat Comer's new documentary “Feckin' Ages Til Sunday”...a brace of goals from Lar Corbett means that editing will continue on the documentary.
OCTOBER — City councillors fall over themselves to get in the photo as the Volvo Ocean Race starts in Alicante. The Bulmers-sponsored Irish entry the Green Flagon starts to sink at the in-port races but gets a bale-out from the other countries and gets underway headed for Galway in May. The vessel is the only mode of transport carrying Irish people TOWARDS Ireland this year.
NOVEMBER
The German Market is back. Controversy erupts when it emerges that the Little Sisters of the Poor Mouth from Belarus are selling glow in the dark statuettes which are made from the ruins from Chernobyl. Aggrieved local market traders (for local people ) mount a daylight attack on the German market traders. Crepes, and food grenades made from hummus are flung. The Irish (well West Brit Irish ) beat the Germans/Russians hands down. Michael D wins the election, but vows to be at Terryland every second Friday to watch Galway United. A special heated throne is constructed.
DECEMBER
Galway's arthouse cinema is officially opened by President Higgins and First Lady Sabina. The first movie is the French classic Ma Petit Ass about a French peasant's love affair with his neighbour's donkey...It freezes again. This time we hit minus 20. It’s even too cold for the Belarussians and the Germans at the market so they head off home early. The Governments face a vote of no confidence and Fianna Fail plan a comeback under Martin. It’ll be different under us, he says, and ya know what, people start to believe him, so they do
