In February 2016, friends and wiseacres Paddy Duffy and Don Morgan wanted to take their comic chops and political interest and provide the sort of sharp, rolling election coverage that other places just can't reach...but they were both had a lot on.
So last weekend, before Big Gerry Adams demonstrated where Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short had been hiding out all this time, and Lucinda Creighton got tough on crime, Don (a new father and barrister in the making in Dublin and Carlow) and Paddy (a hotshot author and TV producer in London and never Carlow) decided to get creative, and decided to take one half hour a week out of their weekend on Google Hangouts (sure nearly worth the tax bill alone!) to make sense and make gags out of the most significant election in Ireland since at least the last one they had. This is their story:
PD: Well Don, we're finally there. The moment I've been waiting for for years. It's finally upon us!
DM: *Shivers nervously*
PD: I think Alan Kelly has the monopoly on the "Labour getting screwed" genre anyway. Now Don, fill me in on this. I left to go work in England the day after the last election. I heard about young Alan Kelly's election on the radio while heading to the airport. How has he become the Supermacs Francis Urquhart in the space of my five year absence?
DM: Whellllll....You may recall Big Phil was moved upstairs to Brussels after his bang up job in Environment, and then he was there. The inspiration to one of the least inspiring Irish rap songs of all time in the Labour Firmament. What could possibly go wrong? Thusly we watched him make big claims on housing, water, probably pylons... and at each turn he was nixed. Best bit was his run in with aged political pugilist and my father's erstwhile mealticket, Michael Noonan. Which he lost, like a fight between Mike Tyson and Fievel Mousekovitch.
PD: You know, that makes so much sense. He's the latest regeneration of Ireland's long unofficial Ministry of Being An Asshole. That would explain why he's trying to rock the boat against Joan Burton so much, who he should know is more than capable of doing that herself. I imagine the Parliamentary Party will resemble the cast of Lost by the end of the month.
DM: Lost is indeed the operative word, though I would expect two further words to appear in conjunction with the Labour Parliamentary Party: House Private.
PD: So where do the Jed Bartlet appreciators and Frank Cluskey beard fetishists go now? The Social Democrats? The Greens? Emigration?
DM: Well the painful screaming match that was last Thursday's TV3 Debate was never going to feature in the West Wing. Maybe Season 5. That one was rubbish.
PD: I have heard about the debate alright. Which mercifully is not the same as hearing it. By the sounds of it it was like some Jon Cage piece where seven tracks play at once. That's the great thing about being in London, not even Vincent Browne's voice travels that far.
DM: Lucky you. It was painful unless you watched it numbed by wine. Which this writer may have resorted to. You asked about the SOCDEMS and Greens?
PD: Do they stand a chance of getting anything other than broad benevolence and #3 preferences in your leafy suburbs?
DM: They are only fielding something like 15 candidates. In my registered constituency of Dublin-Rathdown, which is addled with bourgeois guilt, they didn't run anyone. I mean, even Labour's Alex White is barely canvassing. It should also be pointed out that Fianna Fail, which once ran two poll toppers in that constituency is now only running one, a lady of 71 years who beat off Seamus Brennan's son. For the nomination.
PD: Oh yes, the chocolate lady, right? Is that how desperate FF are to get seats? "Vote for us and we'll give you sweeties?"
DM: Yip: How does she get to work? In her LIR Jet - GEDDIT???
PD: You joke but a private plane is probably the quickest way to get round south Dublin at rush hour. Forming a government looks like it'll be a similarly slow crawl, My current prediction at the minute is Enda Kenny wins his second, defaultiest term, propped up by Fianna Fail, with Gearoid the leader of the opposition consisting of 735 microparties.
DM: That's it: the only futuristic thing is the sound of 'microparties'. I would also think that if they do get in it'll be endgame for the civil war parties: the greener FF members will scuttle over to The Bearded One, whilst those who went to college and hate poor people will go to FG.
DM: MMMMMM *strokes beard contentedly*... As for forming a government, it's never good when people mention 'Belgium' in a conversation about, well anything tbh, but in particular long periods of caretaker Endaships.
PD: Belgium? Fianna Fail in power? This is music to a chocolate impresario's ears...us becoming more like Belgium wouldn't mean us having to bring Phil Hogan back would it?
