The island of Ireland had braced itself for the oncoming of storm Ophelia in the best Irish tradition, with a night of craic and a barrel of Guinness.
On Monday it was reported that over 100,000 homes were without power with the worst of the storm still to come. When what had been a full blown hurricane until only a few short hours earlier finally hit the shores of the Emerald Isle, the citizens of Ireland, both north and south, came together across the divide, threw down barriers and weathered the storm with a song and a cheer, a cheeky joke or two and, of course, copious amounts of The Black Stuff.
Mickey O’Rooney of Killala, County Sligo, told us “Sure, it was a great craic. The landlord of the Three Headed Lamb let us all stay there the night and the bar was swinging. The fourth barrel of Guinness was almost finished and we’d been through the whiskey when the last person fell asleep in the snug.
“When we woke up the next morning, we knew it would be bad. Sean opened the door and we went to survey the damage. There were a few trees down but the thatch had stayed on the roof of the pub so we thought it wasn’t too bad.
“We went for a walk down to the beach and bugger me, if it wasn’t the Argentinian navy come to see what the feck was going on.
“At first I thought it was the little people playing tricks on me or maybe just the drink but no. The whole of Ireland had been blown across the Atlantic and we’d all slept through it.”
The Argentinian government has already laid claim to the newly repositioned land mass which they have named Las Mickvinas, with Boris Johnson and Gerry Adams at loggerheads as to who should begin negotiations.
A statement from the Foreign Secretary reads:
“Two Irishmen walk into a bar. Ouch. Ouch.”
