Avoid the supreme fallacy and eke out some lighter moments

Country Living with Francis Farragher

LAST Thursday night about half-way through the nine-o-clock, I just had enough. It could just have been fatigue from that word that I will refrain from mentioning in this column but it’s the one which has dominated our lives since we had to call off our plans for a few pints on St. Patrick’s Day.

The first alternative on the RTE Player, now loaded onto my iPhone (haven’t we really gotten modern over recent years) was an episode of Fr. Ted on RTE 2, and for the best part of 20 minutes it transported me into a little cocoon of mirth and laughter.

Three Bishops had made the visit to Craggy Island to upgrade the Holy Stone of Clonrichert to a ‘Class Two Relic’ with Fr. Ted on tenterhooks to ensure that Dougal and Jack behaved themselves in an impeccable manner during the visit.

Needless to say, as in all things Fr. Ted, the strategy did not go according to plan. Fr. Jack, despite being on a drip-feed of whiskey and told to repeat the famous line of: “That would be an ecumenical matter,” gets fed up of being poked enthusiastically by Bishop Facks and stuffs the Holy Stone up the rear end of his guest.

Fr. Dougal, aka Ardal O’Hanlon, convinces Bishop O’Neill that the whole religion racket is a fake prompting the second visitor to Craggy Island to join a hippy cult while an even worse fate awaits the most elderly of the visiting clerics, Bishop Jordan. When Fr. Ted flushes the faulty toilets; the waste water erupts into a gulley underneath the Bishop; and he dies of a heart attack.

In the end the three Bishops depart the island: one of them in a box carried out by the local undertaker; the second in an ambulance to have the Holy Stone removed from his rear end; and the third in a colourful VW minibus with a gang of hippies.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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