The old dear rings me, sounding panicked.
“Ross,” she goes. “I’m worried.”
I look at the time on my phone. It’s, like, half nine in the morning.
I’m there, “There’s a hip flask full of emergency gin in your glove box. Just suck on that until O’Brien’s opens.”
She goes, “This is no time for your unpleasantness. It’s your father.”
“The old man? What’s wrong with him?”
"He's gone a bit, well… peculiar."
“Peculiar? As in?”
“He’s been in his office since five o’clock this morning, ranting and raving like some kind of mad man.”
“He was like that most days when I was growing up. Why are you bothering me with this?”
“Ross, it’s different this time. It’s louder. It’s angrier. And I’m worried because we keep the gun in there.”
“You own a gun?”
"Of course we own a gun! How could anyone live this close to the Luas and not own a gun?"
“Jesus, where did you get it?”
“Ronan got it for us when they extended the Green Line to Cherrywood. Stop changing the subject. I’m very concerned.”
"Look, he's probably just having one of those imaginary conversations he likes to have when he's in the jacks. All the things he'd say if he ever got to play a three-ball with Dermot Desmond and John Magnier. "
“Ross, it’s different this time. Please, come quickly.”
So – being too nice for my own good – I end up jumping into the old Seven Serious and pointing its nose in the direction of Foxrock.
I pork in the driveway, then into the gaff I go. Something smells incredible. The old dear has obviously made one of her famous goats cheese and strawberry frittatas.
“That smells absolutely disgusting,” I go. “I’ll take two slices to go – just so as not to hurt your feelings,” and then I tip down to the old man’s study.
Yeah, no, I can hear him through the door, shouting at the top of his voice about “lies”, “misinformation” and “the military-agricultural complex”.
I knock twice, except there's no response, so I end up just pushing the door and walking in. He's sitting in front of his computer, literally shouting at the screen, going, "The truth must be exposed! The truth will be exposed!"
I’m there, “What the fock is going on?”
He turns around and he goes, “Ah, Kicker, there you are!”
I’m like, “What are you doing? You sound like you’ve lost your morbles.”
"Oh, I haven't lost my morbles, Ross! You might even say I've found them! I'm suddenly seeing everything clearly!"
“What are you talking about? Not that I care.”
"Well, you might remember a few weeks ago, I received a letter from Munster Rugby, turning down – the bloody nerve! – my offer to buy the naming rights to Thomond Pork. They said they didn't consider it a suitable brand-fit for them – quote-unquote!"
"Dude, they were hordly going to call their ground O'Carroll-Kelly Pork – especially given how associated I am with Leinster Rugby and how associated you are with Mountjoy Prison. It's no reason to lose your S, H, One, T."
“My what?”
“The old dear thinks you’re having some sort of breakdown.”
“Oh, I’m not having a breakdown, Ross.”
“Then why are you shouting at your computer?”
“Because I’ve storted a vlog!”
“A what?”
“A vlog! Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen! Young Honor helped me!”
My son set him up with a gun and my daughter set him up with a vlog. And I don’t which of them I’m more pissed off with.
“That was, em, very nice of her,” I go.
He’s like, “Yes, it was. Although she chorged me €1,000. Bit of a chip off the old block that one!”
Munster Truther
I'm there, "Why would you want a vlog, though? Who's going to copy what you wear – except other old forts who drink in the Horseshoe Bor?"
“Oh, this vlog has nothing to do with fashion, Ross. This is a political vlog. I’ve become what’s known as a Munster Truther!”
“Okay, what the fock is that?”
“Well, we’re a group of people – a growing constituency, in fact – who doubt the generally accepted account that, in the year of our Lord, nineteen-hundred-and-seventy-eight, on a wet and windy October day, a Munster team beat the famous All Blacks.”
"Dude, I've never believed it. I went to see Alone It Stands with Luke Fitzgerald and the two Kearneys and we walked out. The most for-fetched thing we'd ever seen."
“Well, you’d be surprised at how many people still do believe it, Ross. Which is why I’ve storted this Truther movement. Have a look at this.”
I am prepared to pay the sum of two million euro to anyone who can provide evidence that proves that Munster never beat the All Blacks!
He clicks the mouse and his face pops up on the computer screen. He’s going, “Munster beat the All Blacks. We’ve all heard the story. If you meet someone from Limerick or Cork, it’ll usually be one of the first three things they say to you. Munster beat the All Blacks!
"But did it really happen? Should we go on accepting the word of the handful of people who claim to have seen it and their gullible friends in the Mainstream Media? I'm Chorles O'Carroll-Kelly and I'm port of a growing group of people – Munster Miracle Deniers, if you will – who are challenging the official narrative of what happened that day at Thomond Pork."
I laugh. I’m there, “Are you doing this just because they refused to take your dirty money?”
The old man goes, “I’m doing this because I believe we’re entitled to the truth, Ross. Although I’m going to speed through the next hour of the video here. Like your mother said, I got a little bit worked up – one or two things to get off my chest and so forth.”
I watch his face in fast-motion grow redder and redder. A humongous vein pops up on his forehead and his eyes are rolling around like two Magic 8 Balls.
He presses play again and he's suddenly on the screen shouting like a lunatic. "The so-called media have fed us this story and we have happily swallowed it! Well, not anymore! I am prepared to pay the sum of two million euro – that's right, two million euro! – to anyone who can provide evidence that proves that Munster never beat the All Blacks!"
I’m there, “Dude, you’ve lost it.”
“Or maybe,” he goes, “it’s everyone else!”
