We, the people of Ireland (including her sons and daughters in the Diaspora), hereby demand the immediate surrender of Her Majesty’s Government and the hand-over of the keys of Parliament to Michael O’Leary, our designated representative in London. He can usually be reached at the Lambeth Tavern, off King’s Cross Road (mind the missing manhole cover outside the entrance). You will also be required to vacate Buckingham Palace.
You have 48 hours to respond to this ultimatum. Failure to comply with these demands will be met with all the force of Irish retribution of which you know we are capable, commencing with a one week non-stop song fest hosted by Bono and Riverdance and beamed relentlessly into your homes and places of worship.
You have been charged and convicted in abstentia of the following crimes:
- 800 years of brutal oppression, commencing with the insufferable Chaucer, whose crimes against the Irish are too numerous and well documented to explore here, save to mention his purloining of sacred Irish mythology and passing off same as his own. We shall not even mention the egregious William Shakespeare, of whom ye seem to be so fond. You may have noticed that our campaign for cultural restitution commenced when our under-cover agent, James Joyce, published his brilliant Ulysses, followed by Finnegan’s Wake, both of which are deeply coded blueprints for driving the English crazy by throwing their ridiculous language back at them in meaningless and circular contortions.
- The Eurovision Song Contest.
- Mick Jagger’s mangling of the Irish accent in his execrable portrayal of Ned Kelly in the film of the same name.
- English Premier League Football.
- Your refusal to broadcast the Angelus at 6:00pm each day as demanded by all people of faith.
- Your appropriation of Gaelic words such as shebeen, eejit and jazz, and pretending you made them up in the first place.
- The potato famine.
- Bob Geldhof – and don’t pretend he’s Irish. Didn’t you hand him a knighthood? No self-respecting Irishman would sup from this poisoned chalice.
- Tony Blair, and his feeble attempt to curry favour with the Irish by apologising for England’s past crimes against our noble land and people. Words are cheap, especially those uttered by this clearly deranged madman.
- Supplanting our native Gaelic with the English language, and foisting upon our sons and daughters a vocabulary of 400 vocal grunts (thank you Miles na gCopaleen). How are we to express ourselves in this alien and inadequate tongue when Gaelic requires a sonnet of 2,000 words, preferably to the accompaniment of fiddle and penny whistle, merely to order a beer?
- Your cunning attempt to pass off mediocre English writers as somehow worthy of adulation. Ye know well of whom we speak, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, et al. We accepted the challenge in this vile and alien tongue. Step forward you heroes of the struggle for freedom and justice: Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift, Miles na gCopaleen, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Fran O’Brien, Brendan Behan, WB Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith. We have decided to exclude JM Synge from this honourable list of heroes for his disdainful portrayal of the Irish as simple island-dwellers speaking in comical rhymes. Perhaps another age will look more kindly on his “contribution” to the revolution.
- Your racist characterisation – through The Times, Daily Telegraph and other organs of state propaganda – of the Irish as a bunch of uncouth, brawling louts (notwithstanding Mr O’Leary’s recent disbarment from Murphy’s hostelry for bravely defending himself against a vicious verbal assault upon his person by a patron clearly intent upon jumping the queue).
Should you ignore or fail to honour this ultimatum, our operatives are poised to attack with song and marathon line dancing. Mr O’Leary is standing by. You know what to do.
In these dire times, we invoke the words of the great Genghis Khan: May God Decide Your Fate!
Duly Sworn under Oath by The Revolutionary Government of Ireland and Lesser Britain (in exile).
Place: McDermott’s Hostelry, corner O’Connell and Smith Street, Dublin.
Time: 11:30pm, on this the 15th day of Our Lord, November 2012.