Follow Me Up To KKKarlow

Earlier on today I came across a strange article in the print affair of the Sunday Independant (it's an Irish paper, unfortunately), which claimed that Ku-Klux Klan behaviour in Carlow has enjoyed a particular (re)crudescence in the past month. (Thanks to the legendary Steel Pulse for the picture there). Local 'sources' (i.e. friends of the hacks on duty) have said that locals are terrified by a number of nocturnal raids in the area by people dressed in the famous white hoods, which might suggest that the Klan has sold out like any other radical organization in beginning to terrorize its natural constituency. The Sindo, of course, is the source of news stories as reliable as those that used to tell us every six months back in the late 80s that Richard Dean Anderson (aka McGyver) was dead . And, who knows, perhaps those tall tales originated in no place other than Middle Abbey Street. I have tried to furnish you with a hyperlink to this story but Unison's own search (under standard Boolean principles) reported 1,010 links for 'Carlow+Ku Klux Klan'; it's impossible! I have always felt a certain respect for Ireland's least-known county, but maybe they have a bit of explaining to do, even if local Gardaí have said that it is probably more youthful pranksters than 'genuine' racists at play here.

Another non-story in the Sindo was the tale of a Dublin Fianna Fáil councillor being photographed snorting cocaine (well, Sir AJF O'Reilly is probably a bit too Cavan at heart to pay for pictures of Kate-fucking-Moss, so what do you expect?). Cllr Liam Kelly has claimed that the picture was fabricated, but already head padrino Bertie Ahern doubts him, claiming that Cllr Kelly's claims to be victim of an extortion racket to be 'peculiar'. Very good, Bertie. I don't know what Cllr Kelly would be so afraid of though, surely every mother and father in the Fianna Fáil heartland of Castleknock would know that their under-educated (at an expense) children are already doing it like the hammers of hell. No better a representative for the next generation, I should say.