Tommy Tiernan

My vision of a united Ireland

There’s a lot of consternation at the minute about a hard border. I have no problem with it. It doesn’t have to be that tall, lads. A couple of bricks high should do it — up to the shins, maybe. Like a thing you’d see in a back garden between the patio and the grass. You’d hop from one side to the other fairly handy, and we could smooth it over on the roads for the truckers, and that would be no more hassle than a speed bump.

I’ve been thinking about the refugees using it as a crossing point, as well, from the EU into the UK, and my feeling on this is that if a fella has made it all the way from Mogadishu to Monaghan, could you stop him from going into Armagh? In all fairness, could you stop him? Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other, if you ask me.

I look forward to a united Ireland. I think it could be interesting. Our Unionist cousins, of course, would be hard to please, and awkward, maybe at first, but there are many energies in this country, and adding a few more would only increase the vitality. We have Traveller Energy, Gender Energy, Born Again Christian and Muslim Energy. We’re loaded with Disabled, Holy, Capitalist and Rebel energies, and, literally, more power to us. The island thrives on difference. A difference that is somehow united through place.

But even place is a fluid thing these days. Travelling in the North of the North, up near Ballycastle and Carnlough, you look across the water and can see the bell end of Alba as close to you as Loop Head is to Aran on a clear day. And you realise that Scotland is more of a reality to Northeners than Cork is. But there’s no harm in that. Glasgow means more to Donegal people than Limerick or Tralee does, and it’s always been that way.

We can compliment and contradict each other. Uniformity is the death of difference, and difference is the wonder of living.

We could use the Presbyterian strengths of determined righteousness and set them on the banks. “Go get ’em, Caleb, go get ’em.”

We’d have fun, too, with names when the interbreeding begins. Jebediah Foley has a lovely ring to it, as does Nebuchadnezzar Reilly and Pontius Egan.

It’d be great to go drinking with them. I hear Sammy Wilson does a wild version of The Auld Orange Flute, and I’d give good money to go shoulder to shoulder with Arlene, and the two of us hopping round the hall, singing Teenage Kicks.

I was locked one night with a Methodist girl from the dark hills outside Newry, and she fell into a bad place inside herself.

“The devil is in me,” she said. “I’m going to burn in hell.” She had all the fervour and certainty of the Old Testament brigade. She was a bad girl, and the Bible knew it. I told her not to worry, and that it was Harp that was inside her, not the Devil, and she’d feel better in a day or two.

I was in Armagh one day during the marching season and my friends and I had got half lost down a side street, and we weren’t entirely sure where we were, when we heard a band coming down the road. A Mayo pal of mine, well reared on Republican ideals, started to panic: “Oh phuck, lads, they’ll kill us.”

We girded ourselves for conflict when, lo and behold, they appeared around the corner playing clarinets and piccolos. Hard to be afraid of that. Hard to be bet to death with a recorder.

You’ll never have total peace, Ireland will never be a conflict-free zone. I was up in Derry recently, and overheard a fairly startling conversation. Two young ones were yapping. One of them says, “All I know is that I came into the room and the wee legs were hanging out the dog’s mouth.”

Her friend said, “Your dog ate a turtle?”

Well, I had to get more info. I leaned in and said hello, and they filled me in. She had pissed into her brother’s aftershave bottle. She’d emptied the cologne down the sink, and filled it with her pee. It was six months before he found out, heading into town every Friday night wondering why he wasn’t getting anywhere with the ladies with the smell of Chanel Number 1 hanging off him.

He lost the plot when he did find out and he went into her room, grabbed her pet turtle and fed it to the dog. I think it survived, but she wasn’t done yet. She then went into his room, and when he was out, peed onto his pillow case and dried it with a hairdryer. He’s been sleeping on it for the past few weeks…

Never mind world peace, there’ll never be family peace, so we should expect a bit of friction if ever we upgrade to a 32-county independent Republic.