A wry look ahead to 2009 09.01.09
by
Liam Porter, Inishowen Independent
January
As the rate of Sterling drops to the stage where a pound
is worth just about 25 cent, politicians on both sides
of the border come up with an inventive plan to try and
stave off a crisis in Inishowen and Derry by introducing
a new currency – The Eurling. The new notes have the
picture of Buncrana Mayor Dermot McLaughlin on the front
and Mayor of Derry Gerard Diver on the back. Initially
compromise candidate ‘Eoghan Quigg’ is suggested as the
face of the new notes but it is agreed that nobody would
know who he is by the end of January.
February
There is shock and uproar in Carndonagh when they
discover that, not only is their |
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Diamond dirty, it is in
fact a fake and isn’t a Diamond at all. The people of
the north Inishowen town are devastated to learn that
their Diamond is a fake. “The experts have been out and
they have confirmed that it’s not a Diamond it’s a
Triangle! Imagine, a bloody triangle! We just don’t see
the point in them,” a local spokesperson said.
March
The signs of the recession are evident for all to see as
vans at the Moville and St. Patrick’s Day parades that
usually have two green balloons tied to them, this year
just have one. As an extra economic saving they also
turn off their hazard lights.
As unemployment spirals a plan is announced to half the
length of dole queues and all recipients are told they
must line up two abreast from now on.
April
The area’s new currency struggles to take off and a
major crisis seems set to collapse the Eurling as banks
fail to agree on the date for the up coming May Bank
Holiday. The Bishop steps in to try to save the new
currency announcing that savings schemes will commence
again in Eurlings from May 1st. The governments then
announce that dole rates on both sides of the border
will be exactly the same. This does away with the need
for people from the North to use fake addresses to claim
dole in the south. Then, when it’s announced that all
bets at the Brandywell dog track will be in Eurling only
from May 1st, the new currency finally takes off.
May
Election fever hits in May with local elections and
European elections and re-runs of the Lisbon Treaty, the
Nice Treaty, the Maastricht Treaty and the 1937
Constitution Referendum. Angry voters tackle council
election candidates on the doorsteps about all the
potholes on the roads. The candidates promise that
they’ll look into them. There’s chaos at a tea-break in
the Inishowen Independent when eighteen election
candidates turn up at the opening of a milk carton. As
they stand to get their photo taken everything seems
fine but it doesn’t take long for things to go sour…
June
Uncertainty in the international oil market causes a
panic in June driving up fuel prices and sending people
flocking back to the bogs again. This causes a huge run
on banks in and around Urris and yet another crisis
unfolds. Local turf cutters call for immediate
intervention claiming that if the government doesn’t
step in to bail out the banks everyone will soon have
sod all.
July
Having secured the future of their Marine Rescue
Co-Ordination Centre at Malin Head, the people of Malin
decide it’s time to start another campaign, this time to
build a space station near Banbas Crown. “In fairness
now the one thing we have up here is plenty pf space and
sure if any of them space ship thingys falls into the
sea, where better could it happen now?” a local
spokesperson said. The campaign is halted when it
discovered that there are in fact no plans for a space
programme in Ireland despite the introduction of the
‘shuttle bus’ to Malin Head under the rural transport
programme.
August
Following the resounding success at the box office of
the movie ‘A Shine of Rainbows’ movie director Vic Sarin
returns to Inishowen and following another dreadful
Summer decides to re-make ‘Singing in the Rain,” and
“Gone with the Wind.”
September
There’s panic in Culdaff when the village loses its Blue
Flag yet again. “We’ve been worried about it for a
while,” says a local villager. “When it was windy last
week it was in a while flap altogether.” Following a
full scale search the flag turns up safe and well and
says it just needed a wee rest. “I’ll be flyin’ tomorrow
again,” it said.
October
Residents in Muff were boiling mad again in October when
they were told they had to boil their water once again
following reports that their water supply was
contaminated. The scare turns out to be a false alarm as
a result of an over zealous official who it emerged was
‘contaminated water on the brain.’ It was later
announced that the scare had been lifted and the
official had been cured with a wee tap on the shoulder!
November
Yet another currency crisis emerges just weeks before
Christmas when toxins show up in a bad batch of
greyhound feed leading to the cancellation of racing at
the Brandywell. As far as the currency battle goes all
bets are now off and Sterling makes a strong comeback
and leads by a mile down the home straight as we go into
December. When shoppers start to flock over the border
again from Inishowen to Derry it leads to the abandoning
of plans to build social housing in a large shopping
centre car park for the hundreds of people who had
returned from addresses in Inishowen to live in Derry
since the introduction of the Eurling.
December
Following the collapse of the Eurling and having learned
a lesson from the previous Christmas the |
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government steps in to stem
the flow of shoppers heading into the North by
introducing checkpoints at all border crossings and
issuing on the spot €10,000 fines to anyone caught
shopping in the North. The EU steps in to rap government
knuckles claiming it can’t prevent free movement of
people or goods until An Taoiseach points out that in
return for a re-run of the Lisbon Treaty he was told he
could. Anyway he said, in one of the many referendums
slipped in during May the government had re-introduced
the crime of treason with an on the spot €10,000 fine
for offenders. “When we said your country needs you, we
bloody meant it. Maybe now you’ll listen,” he said. |
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A DROP OF
PORTER is
the weekly
column of
Inishowen
Independent
editor,
Liam Porter. |
|
