2 TribuneReview
13/07/08
DAVID KENNY’S ERINDIPITY
Stupidest
holidaymaker ever
RECENTLY, a flyer flopped onto our
doormat which caused our eyebrows
to arch even further up our receding
hairline than usual. It was advertising
grass. Not the smokeable kind, nor,
indeed, the mowable kind. This was
the ultimate luxury – a fake lawn.
‘No more mowing!’ the ad
whooped. ‘Think of all the time you
could free up by having an astro-turf
garden! More time to get stuck in
traffic! More time to get an ulcer, you
Celtic Tiger Cub! Sack the Latvian
gardener: go fake – you know it makes
sense!!!’
We were reminded of the sayings:
‘bringing coal to Newcastle’, ‘tea to
China’ and ‘selling sand to the Arabs’.
Flogging fake grass to a country
called ‘the Emerald isle’ seemed to us,
possibly, the most stupid idea we had
ever heard of. That was until last
week, when we witnessed the
unveiling of Dublin’s first fake beach
at the IFSC – in the rain.
With that incredibly thick idea in
mind, we’ve themed this week’s
miscellany around general stupidity,
culminating with the tale of a man
heading off to a very real beach with
something false, but alarming...
Stupidest gold-diggers
Gold has just been discovered in
Clontibret, Co Monaghan. Let’s hope
the prospectors are smarter than the
ones who participated in Ireland’s
Stupidest Gold Rush Ever.
This took place in Dalkey, Co
Dublin in early 1834.
Etty Scott, the daughter of one of
the quarrymen building Dun
Laoghaire harbour, dreamed there
was gold under a rock off Coliemore
Road. She convinced a group of 36
gullible labourers to leave their jobs
and spend a month digging for it.
The fruitless gold rush ended when
some pranksters created mayhem by
releasing two cats, with burning
sponges tied to their tails, into the
quarrymen’s camp as they slept.
Spooked and humiliated, the labourers
returned to on the harbour and when
it was built, they sold their Dalkey
camp to speculators and moved away.
This was their second big mistake.
That November, Ireland’s first rail-
way opened at Dun Laoghaire. Dalkey
was now accessible to Dublin’s elite.
The land the labourers had sold for a
small sum sky-rocketed as the gentry
raced to build houses there. It’s now
some of the most valuable in Ireland.
So, apart from being the Thickest
Gold-Diggers Ever, they were also the
Thickest Land Owners Ever too.
They should have stayed put, not
unlike the following muppets...
Stupidest invasion
As Clontibret braces itself for an
influx of gold-diggers, it’s worth
remembering its last invasion.
On 7 August 1986, the north’s DUP
deputy leader Peter ‘Braveheart’
Robinson led a 500-strong invasion
force across the border into
Clontibret protesting against the
Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Some of the invaders entered the
garda station, assaulted two officers
and then held a quasi-military drill in
the square. After this great show of
military strength, the sons of Ulster
were left pondering the question:
“what the hell do we do now?”
As their choices were limited to (a)
sticking a Union Jack in the ground
and claiming Clontibret for the crown
or (b) hanging around to get their
arses kicked by the locals, they legged
it back across the border.
Robinson, however, was arrested
and fined IR£17,500 for what rates as
the stupidest, most pointless invasion
of any place, ever.
Had he hung on to his new con-
quest, Robbo and his pals would be
gold millionaires by now. The fools.
Stupidest riot
Stupid sectarianism isn’t confined to
Northern Ireland: Glasgow has its
own share of bigoted gobdaws.
Here’s the scene: a pub packed with
Monkey Celtic fans, drunkenly celebrating
business: Jimmy their team’s 3-0 victory over arch-
the monkey rivals Rangers. One hundred of them
wound up taking spill out of the pub and the mood
a job as the sours when a policewoman denies
judge’s personal them access to a nearby street.
secretary They then start abusing
pedestrians and some smash a car
window. Police reinforcements are
called in and soon nearly 50 officers
are battling a full-scale riot.
After an hour, 29 Celtic fans are
being dragged off to the cells.
The unusual thing about this riot
was that it didn’t happen in Glasgow.
It took place in Dublin, off
O’Connell Street, in 2003.
The Evening Herald summed it up
perfectly with the headline: “Is This
The Stupidest Riot Ever?”
As it was 200 miles away from the
game, in another country and no
Rangers fans were involved, the
answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
From a crowd of gorillas, we now
turn to a monkey...
This column of
trivia revels in its Stupidest legal case taken
utter, utter
uselessness. Any against a monkey
unimportant ideas There are two rules of thumb when it
or queries are comes to dealing with the law: don’t
always welcome mess with the judge and don’t sue
monkeys. In 1877, newly-arrived Irish
dkenny@tribune.ie immigrant Mary Shea did both.
www.davekenny.com New York’s famous ‘Monkey Trial’
Sunday Tribune
took place on 28 November of that
year when Mary took a monkey –
whose name was Jimmy Dillio – to
court. Jimmy worked for an organ
grinder and was charged with biting
Mary’s finger when she attempted to
tickle his nose.
The judge dismissed the charge on
the grounds that he couldn’t commit
a monkey to trial. He then threatened
to cite Mary with contempt when she
stood up and cried: “This is a fine
country for justice!”
Jimmy, who was dressed in a
scarlet cap and jacket, showed his
gratitude by shaking the judge’s hand
and grinding his organ. (His owner’s,
not the judge’s.)
Let’s move on to another stupid
brush with the law...
Stupidest holidaymaker
Over the years there have been
several stupid airport breaches at
Dublin airport. Take, for example, the
Middle Eastern gentleman who
arrived at the x-ray machine with his
hand luggage stuffed full of wicked-
looking kitchen knives.
The man later explained in court
how his wife had placed the knives in
the bag believing it was going to be
checked in. (Note to wives: there are
easier ways to get rid of us.)
He’s nothing, however, compared to
the genius who turned up at security
with a gun in his hand luggage in
September 2006.
The Munster man was held after
security spotted a modified firearm
in with his spare jocks and
Immodium tablets.
The incident sparked a major alert
and caused his plane to be grounded
as airport police confirmed the gun
wasn’t dangerous. (Its barrel had
been filled with concrete.)
Incredibly, the man was on his
way to holiday in Egypt, a country not
renowned for its forbearance of
people arriving there with firearms.
If you think this chap was stupid,
then spare a thought for his equally
thick friends.
They had placed the gun in his bag
as a prank.
We started off this column by
sniggering at the idea of bringing fake
grass to Ireland, but we have to
conclude that bringing a fake gun to
the Middle East is considerably more
stupid. And dangerous.
This year, for his own safety, we
suggest that Mr Fake-Gunman takes
a holiday closer to home.
We’d like to see him head to the
fake Costa del Dublin at the rain-
soaked IFSC with his equally fake
friends and those idiots who wasted
good money building a fake beach in a
recession.
Once there, we further suggest he
put them up against a fake wall, raise
his fake gun, take fake aim and...