A Free State with New Lords

Great shows last week Kid; five great shows which had Sony Award written all over them. You really should take the box of crayons away from Mr Coyle. It is not generally known, but Mr Coyle was the first man to write, "Free Derry" on a gable wall. It was not patriotic fervour which inspired Mr Coyle. Oh no! Oh no! Oh dearie me-no! It was the looters, staggering home burdened down with TVs and Burton's suits. At half past ten on the morning of April 2nd 1971, Mr Coyle came up with a humdinger of a political slogan which read thus.
" WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND A STATE WHERE ALL ARE EQUAL UNDER THE LAW.
A STATE WHERE MEN AND WOMEN CAN WALK FREE WITHOUT FEAR OF INJUSTICE.
A STATE WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME AND THEY'RE ALWAYS GLAD YOU CAME.
A STATE WHERE A MAN CAN EAT A SAUSAGE SUPPER IN PEACE. A STATE WHERE BLIND BATS SWOOP. A STATE WHERE DOGS ARE GIVEN FREE LEGAL AID. A STATE WHERE GOLFERS ARE NOT LAUGHED AT. A STATE AT PEACE WITH ITSELF. A STATE WHERE A MAN MAY STATE WHATEVER HE WISHES TO STATE IN THAT STATE.
OH, AND FREE EYE TREATMENT TOO."
Mr Coyle picked up a brush and a tin of black paint, but was unable to find a gable wall big enough to write his slogan on. After that he was never the same. He took to pulling clumps of hair out of his head and yelling, "STALL THE WEDDING!"
Eamon McCann could see that Mr Coyle was suffering from post traumatic stress. It was then Eamon McCann gently took the stones out of Mr Coyle's hands and pockets and sent him home to rest. For three years Mr Coyle lay in bed yelling,
"I did my bit! Hey girl, I been down to the river and paid my dues!"
As the coolie on the bike delivered the Tokyo Chronicle, I read the banner headline and yelled,
"He's only gone and done it! The Rev, Doctor Ian Paisley, is now Lord Paisley!"
"Tommy pulled my forelock and cried,
"Well done Governor! I knows my place. My place is to look up full of 'umbleness at the Peers of the Realm."
"Ian Paisley," I said, as I bricked up a wall where I would hang his Lordship's portrait. "Ian Paisley is like Frank Sinatra. Both hate the Kennedy family and both of them did it, "Their Way". Ian Paisley has no regrets. I heard him say that recently to Noel Thompson, who was wearing a cast on his arm after falling over YET another stile in the Mournes."
Tommy drank a bottle of brandy, burped and said,
"Do you not think the Russian hat was a bit of a faux pas, a faux pas that could have lead to a united Ireland?"
"Poppycock and fiddle sticks!" I yelled. "Ian Paisley is a big man. A big man can get away with wearing a Russian hat or a wind propeller on his head. Now, had it been Hugo Duncan!!!"
Tommy began to giggle and replied,
"Can you imagine little, tiny,teenie Hugo Duncan with a big Russian hat on his head?
Why it would look like an egg cosy."
I took another brick out of the wall, parcelled it up, addressed it to Pink Floyd and cried,
"If Strabane's smallest dared to wear a Russian hat on his head, the fashion police would come down on him like a ton of bricks and the wee man would end his days in a Russian gulag."
"Gulag?" said Tommy. "That's a funny name,Gu-lag. Is that where we get the term, old lag, meaning a long term prisoner?"
"Indeed it is, my fine spotted dick," I replied merrily. "And did you know that the first old lag in a Gulag was Irish?"
"I did not," said Tommy. "Please relate the circumstances as to how this strange state of affairs came about."
"It was the year 1547," I said. "Paddy Murphy from the Glenties, a self employed stone mason and part time ballerina, was on holiday cycling around Russia. It was an awful cold Winter. As Paddy cycled past the palace of Tsar Ivan Muscovite singing, "Mother McCree" he hit a patch of black ice and went flying over the handlebars. As poor Paddy lay there, Tsar Muscovite looked out from his palace window and laughed at him. Paddy, a man who had been thrown out of more public houses than Jordie Tuft, lost the bap and yelled,
"Hi you tube, why don't you grit this road or get the snow plough out?"
The police pounced. Paddy was dragged into a field and before you could say, "Another vodka and white please," a big Gulag was build round Paddy."
"History!" said Tommy. "I find history amazing, brilliant and boring. They do say," said Tommy, "that history belongs to the victors."
"Rubbish!" I yelled. "History belongs to David Starkey."
I then ran at the wall with my head, broke through into an entry, where I found six winos playing, Ring-a-ring-a-Rosie. Who says there is no night life in Belfast???
Oh to see Lord John Preston dressed in ermine, eating a pie and calling for HP sauce in the House of Lords!