Tommy Tiernan

The Tommy Tiernan column

My funeral plans

Iturned 49 recently, and have decided that, with the time of me life that’s in it, it’s as well to leave instructions as to what I want done with me body after I die. I’m not on the way out or anything like that, I just thought that in order to avoid any confusion on the matter, it’s best to have a clear account of the wishes of the deceased left behind for people to refer to. And rather than go to a solicitor’s, I thought that I’d leave it here for ye, in the LIFE magazine of the Sunday Independent.

I’m one of those lucky folk who know when and how I’m going to pass. See, a few years ago, I got me astrological chart done. I gave the man the time and date of me birth, and he produced a large map full of asterisks and arrows, and deduced from that the influences and auspices that I was under.

I know when I’ll die

I asked him if he knew when I was going to die, and he said that he did, but that he usually didn’t give out that type of information. I said I’d get him two tickets to see Philomena Begley in the Farnham Arms in Cavan, and he said, “OK”.

Now rest easy, it isn’t any time soon. I’ve a long way to go yet. Put it this way, I’ll still be here when Meath next win the All-Ireland title, but will probably be gone before Mayo do.

Anyhows, when the time comes, I don’t wish to be buried or cremated. I’d like me body to be wrapped in high-power fireworks (the lad in the shed on the Nordy side of Blacklion and Belcoo sells them. You know the place; on the way to Enniskillen out of Sligo. Just past the red phone box).

Then I want to be taken out to Galway Bay on some sort of a flotation device, and detonated from a safe distance. Let bits of me rise up into the sky mixed up with a massive dose of firecrackers, lady spinners and aerial repeaters. Let whoever is inclined to, gather on the prom in Salthill and watch the spectacle unfold.

The picture I want printed in the obituary section of the Connacht

Tribune is the one of me taken on the roller coaster in Legoland last year. I’m screaming with fear in it. The mouth is wide open and the eyes are out on stalks. Like a man on his way to Hades.

I’d like all me possessions destroyed, especially the stack of experimental-poetry notebooks left underneath the desk in the shed. I have a fantastic collection of pork-pie hats that I’d love to be given away to men with no hair, to protect them from the sinister effects of the sun, but apart from that, let everything go.

It’s always been a dream of mine to get a mention on the Angelus. So the day after I go, if the fella who’s down by the water looking at the swans — the aul’ lad — well, if he could turn and just say (silently, of course, I’m not sacrilegious) to some other aul’ lad passing, or maybe the Nigerian lady on her way home after cleaning the offices, “I see Tommy Tiernan is after dying”. BONG! Then that would be commemoration enough for me, and a great source of comfort to my family.

Will Fluffy be there?

Finally, I swore to the kids that there’s life after death, although I was wise enough not to explain the nature of it to them. That we will all be enveloped in an eternal bliss that is beyond the capabilities of our senses to experience doesn’t make any sense to them. They’re still stuck on the ‘Will Fluffy and Grandad be there?’ stage of their theological development.

So, if by some chance I can’t make it back from divine ground to give them the definitive nod on Heaven and all that, would one of ye mind taking up the slack for me?

Does anyone own a mannerly dove or have access to a fox? If one of them could just stick their head in the door of the house at home while the wains and wife are having breakfast the following morning, I’d greatly appreciate it.

It doesn’t have to say anything, just wander in, give the nod and head out the door again. To be sure that the kids know it’s me, if it could have a pork-pie hat on too, that’d be fantastic.

“Would one of ye take up the slack for me? Does anyone own a mannerly dove or have access to a fox?”