“Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
‘I wouldn’t blame myself for something I didn’t know was going on.’
The Best Catholics in the World, Derek Scally
With the recent news of yet another homegrown nonce from the citadel of Arkla being outed, local ‘concerned citizens’ militia, Arklow Says No, have yet to acknowledge the perpetrator’s Fernhill origins, which itself was the flashpoint of anti-immigrant protests regarding ‘unvetted males’ and their proposed proximity to a local national school.
“Well, as a group of shit stirrers, malcontents we base all our thoughts and actions on social media Thick-Tok bollocks and clickbait xenophobia,” said self-appointed spokesperson Taebag Diggins.
“The estate always knew which doors not to trick or treat on Halloween, or which shirt-lifting musical directors to avoid, but sure it twas the greatest little country in the world back then and we all looked out for one another.
I myself suffer from massive ear syndrome, also known as Dumboitis, which forces me to sleep upright like the fuckin Elephant Man every night for fear ill asphyxiate myself if I roll over. This already pisses me off no end and sure when I’m not beatin’ me ma over the head with cider bottles, I’m out protecting the women of the town against the imagined threat of imaginary foreigner invaders who threaten to sully the very sanctity of purity that is Fernhill.
The Other is everything that lies outside of the self. The Self is the familiar (Europe, the West, “us”) and the Other is strange (the Orient, the east, “them”.)
Orientalism, Edward Said
“As Arklow Says No spokesperson, my job is to merely project the internalised fears and negative attributes of our own estate onto this ‘other,’ therefore consigning and compartmentalising to the Id decades of theocratic-induced trauma.”
“This shame-based society was activated and steered from above but was also self-policing by ordinary people[…]People who, unconsciously, share a sense of collective shame[…]act quickly to identify a sub-group to blame for past events. This is natural human behaviour.”
The Best Catholics in the World, Derek Scally
I asked Diggins why he wears a made-in-Vietnam flat cap whilst waving a made-in-China tricolour:
“Well, see, it’s to evoke the spirit of another famous Irish bigot, The Bull McCabe, from John B Keane’s savage critique of greed, parochialism and blinkered fear of ‘outsiders,’ The Field. I also have a chaotic home life involving domestic violence and a litany of barring orders so I must vent my fury and rage somehow now that the wife isn’t me pinata anymore, I mean punching bag, pinata is dat wetback shite.
My life is an utter self-inflicted trainwreck, merely exacerbated by the ever-increasing strains and demands of the increasingly demanding race to the bottom capitalist system I find myself in, which must endlessly be fed with utter toil, tears and consumerism. Because of this, I blame the nearest foreigner I’ve never met for my miserable existence instead of our neo-colonial overlords.
Regular Mass-goer, Bernadette (place generic Arkla surname here) says she “saw nothin, heard nothin, spoke nothin” during the entire span of the paedophiles’ reign of terror.
“Sure nobody knew what the fuck was goin on at all as he was fondling them young ones in de Jax of the gymnastics hall. I knew so little about it, to tell ya the truth, that I warned all my female relatives to stay away from the beast.
“‘Bystander effect’ – the term given to the phenomenon whereby the greater the number of witnesses to something, the less likely people are to help a person in distress.”
The Best Catholics in the World, Derek Scally
“In a town of ten-odd thousand people back then, sure nobody had even an inkling of what he was up to all dose years, but we sure as shit knew on the steps of the church after Mass if the neighbour’s daughter three doors down had to take the boat to England very unexpectedly! Now fuck off, Winnin Streak is on!”
A Wickla Mick spokesperson said he is as flabbergasted as anyone as to how the local sex beast could have hoodwinked their journalist integrity fact-check team into awarding the sex pest glowing Jimmy Savile-esque hagiographies up until a mere three years ago.
“Sure if a fraudulent, grifting film auteur approaches us to tell us they are a film auteur then they are one, and if a disgraced high-profile Chief Financial Officer now morality carwashes his way to charity fundraiser status then he can and if a greedy property developer is now supposed to be Jim Larkin reborn then they are too. It’s not my problem, we just print the news!”
When asked for comment, Billy Fitzbollocks and Father File stood by their court character references for the “shining light and pillar of the community” and stated that they would do so again at the drop of an altar boys vestment.
“People don’t want to look at that because it’s themselves they are looking at really[…]We all feel much more comfortable to be able to point the finger at someone else rather than [our]selves.”
Marie Collins
“It is simply not feasible, credible or believable that people did not know what was happening in our cities, towns and villages – and for many families happening in their own home.”
Katherine Zappone
