The Emergency: 'On This Day In Irish History'

Thaddeus Ó’Siúcra invents the worlds first computing device. It fills a barn and is constructed almost entirely from abacuses and marla (malleable modelling clay used by small children). Data is input by moving the beads and counting as you go and results are read by remembering what you input. On this day in 1933 Ó’Siúcra correctly calculates the potential market for his machine to be 1 using the machine itself. (The result has an accuracy of +/-1).

With the potato crop ruined and the population of Ireland suffering terribly for its reluctance to cook and eat pasta, there is a growing black market in potatoes. John Fitzgerald of Youghal becomes the notorious Potato Baron when on this day he successfully imports and sells three thousand individual potatoes to the same number of families. Only when they arrive to meet the potato boat from France do they realise that he has sold them all the same potato. The incident is a black day in Irish history but nonetheless forms the basis for Irish government policy on social welfare in the 1970s and 80s.

Queen Elizabeth The First of England sends The Earl Of Essex to quell the rebellious Irish. The Earl does well and after only two weeks of concerted violence on the part of his trusty yeomen, London is back in the hands of the English. But for how long?

In an attempt to show a kinder more modern face, the Catholic Church in Ireland appoints a Papal Envoy With Responsibility for Gyration In Moderation. Msgnr. Carlo Luccia preaches in Carlow and admits that there is nothing in the Bible about sexy dancing one way or the other. Sales of The Bible plummet and booksellers are plagued with requests of copies of What Is Sexy Dancing?.

Enraged by the Kaiser’s expansionist policies in Europe the entire Wicklow village of Crossderrig enlists in the British Army. Only one of them passes the medical, achieving a grade “A-1″. He fought heroically in the dreadful mud and stinking wretchedness and also distinguished himself when he left Crossderrig to fight in France. Three others achieve the grade “moribund”, another two are assessed as “odd looking to an injurious degree” and the remaining thirteen are forced to return home having only been awarded certificates stating: “These men are a dozen sheep and a hen”.

Warren FitzWarren-O’Toole builds The Great Wall Of Athlone. For many years it is credited with keeping out the invading Mongol hordes, despite being constructed partly of matted dog fur and partly if gaping holes. Only in the early 1950s with the advent of widely available cheap atlases is it generally conceded that geographical good fortune rather than FitzWarren’s edifice has been responsible in large part for the absence from the Athlone high street of pubs and dairies named “Old Mother Khan’s”.

With war clouds gathering over Europe, Eamon de Valera and his men make far-reaching decisions which will affect the quality of gummed stationery in Ireland to this day.

Plans by the hated Black and Tans to gun down the entire crowd and all players at a Hurling match in Nenagh are thwarted by Republican freedom fighters who blow up the tanning salon, forcing the British militia to take a long holiday in Majorca before they can comply with uniform regulations.

A spate of bizarre agrarian violence takes place as the result of Mad Martin O’Toole evicting himself from his own hovel on a large estate. The landlord, Quentin Ffoulkes, attempts to forcibly place him back in the cottage, saying he will catch his death in the cool breeze and attendant showers. However O’Toole refuses to yield and Ffoulkes is forced to burn down the rest of the estate leaving only O’Toole’s cottage standing and forcing him to get indoors.

A group of Clontarf residents, frustrated with increasingly high rates of pillaging in the area which is bringing the price of Hovels down, forms a “Danes Out” movement. Their first efforts consist mostly of booby-trapping gold ornaments and monks – a costly and ineffective approach. However within a year these small skirmishes develop into a full pitched battle in Clontarf led by the most militant estate agent Ireland has ever known, Brian Ború. If you listen carefully when the wind whips across Clontarf into the Irish sea it is said you can still hear their battle cry to this very day: “There goes the neighbourhood, ye filthy horn-hatted feckers!!!”