The Blindboy Podcast - Arse Children Part 1

Episode Date: July 9, 2019

A reading of my short story Arse Children Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bend Enda's Bed Knob, you feathered Duncans. Hello, welcome to podcast number 92 of the Blind Boy podcast. I speak to you this week from a position of incredibly heavy jet lag. I haven't slept in 24 hours, I'm just off the plane from Toronto. And I'm at my studio. And I feel like I've been hit into the face with a hammer made out of time. I'm so exhausted that I have that type of hyperactive energy. Do you know what I mean?

But, yeah, that's the crack. I have been in Canada for the past week, as you know, if you were listening last week, doing some gigs. And firstly, the gigs were fucking fantastic. They were a lot of fun. It was two Rubber Bandits gigs, two live podcasts. Thank you to everyone for fucking coming out. They were sold out.

It was fantastic, it was a pleasure, also for anyone interested, there's two live podcasts in Dublin this month, at the very end of July, in the Ivy Gardens, at the Vodafone Comedy Festival, look that up, come along, I think they're mostly sold out, but a few tickets left. That would be good crack. Because. I'd be picking my guests. From the line up. Of the festival. So that should be.

Promises to be fun. As you also know. Look. I was. Up the walls. Busy as well. So I didn't really get to. Thoroughly enjoy.

Canada. On a social level. Which was annoying. Because. We were brought over by a cannabis seed company who sponsored the whole thing so they put us up in in like proper five star fucking hotels um so while I was in Toronto for three days I had the pleasure of staying in my room all day having to work on bits of my book and the BBC thing while Mr Cromant, DJ Willie O DJ were on the roof

in the pool of the five star drinking cocktails all day in gorgeous sun so boo hoo but em yeah I I told you that this week's podcast was going to be me speaking on the side of the road from Toronto or Vancouver, like I'd done with San Francisco. So in the eight days that I was away, I had recorded two separate podcasts for this week.

So the first podcast... Yeah, I've been unlucky. So the first podcast that I wanted to put out today, there is a musician called Devin Townsend, who's an absolute legend of heavy metal, like a seriously heavy hitter, do you know? Someone who would be seen as a pioneer of the extreme metal genre.

And Devin is, he's been a Rubber Bandits fan for a while, and we chat back and forth on the internet, and he lives in Toronto, so I said to Devin, now we organised this at 12 o'clock at night after I just finished a gig and I was I was half cut and we were to meet at 10 a.m the next day and record a little podcast on the side of the road so we did um found a cafe I had my my lovely stereo mic with me and I also had I had another I brought a condenser mic with me on an arm and I basically

set up a professional radio studio setup at a cafe on the side of the road with the sound of traffic and all of this um and it sounded fantastic in my ears when I was monitoring it but when I listened back my microphone recorded but Devin's didn't so it means that his voice in the background is quite faint now that doesn't mean the interview is lost what it means is it'll require a few hours of me with some trickery in the studio to make it listenable so it's not lost it's just not the best it could be so I couldn do that. Then as soon as I got to Toronto. I found a park bench. And took an hour out of my day.

To record a podcast for ye. Completely unedited. Just talking. And. I don't know. I wasn't feeling it. Firstly there was no bird sound. Where our hotel was.

Was kind of weird. It was quiet. So I didn't get. Many kind of weird. It was quiet so I didn't get many people walking past. It didn't have the ASMR thing I was looking for. It was just disturbed every so often by a motorbike or a helicopter. And here's the thing. I was very happy with that San Francisco podcast a few weeks back. Because it had what I'd call congruence okay when I went to San Francisco I lived and breathed it I had to I walked around I confronted it I really truly

uh was affected by San Francisco it had a deep effect on me. And when I got to, you know, seeing all the homelessness, being in the Tenderloin District, I was transported, I was a fish out of water. And when you do that to yourself, and when you're curious, and you're a fish out of water,

you absorb everything. So when I did that San Francisco podcast, I managed to get a lovely little mindful space where I was emotionally congruent and emotional congruence means that what's in my heart and what's in my head are identical so what you end up getting is a very passionate honesty and passionate honesty is what will lead to a good podcast. I had that in San Francisco. With Toronto, when I sat down for an hour in that park to record it, I just wasn't getting that same congruence and I think it's because I didn't really get to experience Canada. I spent a lot of time in my hotel and even when I was leaving the gaff to go to gigs, we were going there in taxi.

So I didn't live and breathe Toronto. And it showed in that recording that I did. So here I am recording a new podcast this week in Limerick with Severe Jetlag. Now I'm not saying Canada wasn't crack. It was. I loved it. It was good. It's always nice to throw yourself out of your comfort zone and go somewhere new.

But what happened? I got vicious sleep paralysis as a result of sleep deprivation. Which was interesting. I don't get sleep paralysis that often, but I sometimes will get it, definitely, if I sleep on my back, so I made two mistakes. I was heavily sleep deprived from work and jet lag, and my hotel bed was very comfortable,

so I slept like a starfish, fully on my back. So then I woke up in the middle of the night, frozen solid, hallucinating and wanting to scream and believing that there was an entity or a presence in my room which i haven't had yet with sleep paralysis i've had sleep paralysis where you wake up and you can't move and you're trying to scream but i've never had the entity in the room but it was enjoyable it's even though that sounds terrifying I woke up and knew I was in sleep paralysis so I was able to observe the entity with a critical eye I didn't see anything like I said but I felt

something in the room and and what that is really is in the room and and what that is really is it's almost like it's it's not not too far off tinnitus or a phantom limb when you wake up from a deep sleep and your brain is still still in dream state but your conscious mind is awake you experience that it's threatening because you can't fucking move and your brain fills in the gaps and invents menacing figures so I had sleep paralysis so that sounds really negative but it was kind of like

that was kind of class so I was kind of happy to get sleep paralysis then what else cannabis is legal over there so I got given a ton I got given a giant bag of fucking free weed like i didn't get to go near any of it and i was like why are you giving me a fucking

this big a bag of free weed i distributed it to whoever would take it then even on stage when when it was either gigging or the live podcast people kept throwing joints of pure weed up on stage at me and I was taking them and giving them to people because I just wasn't in the mood for smoke over there and then yeah when I got back into Shannon Airport there they had

the fucking sniffer dogs so I was shitting it that some weed had gotten into the inside of my tracksuit pants. But luckily the sniffer dog did not sniff it out. So that's good to know. But it's just crazy. Like being in a country where cannabis is fully legal.

Everyone smokes it. You know, have a big giant bag in your hand and it's grand. Stinking of weed. And then you come back to Ireland and there's dogs at the airport. Bit odd. last night in Canada was great crack did a live podcast with a fella fella's called the Monsters of Schlock

which I don't know if this will be a good podcast to listen to but it was certainly brilliant to attend the Monsters of Schlock are like scientists slash circus freaks so i interviewed them at the podcast in front of it's like an audience of about 600 people but during the interview they also did kind of freak show stunts so they stuck syringes into their hands into their

faces they stuck their elbows into clamps one of them stuck hooks into his eyeballs and lifted a can of beer off the ground their whole thing is kind of testing the extremities of the human body, they have a load of

world records for sticking hooks onto the skin of their backs and pulling a truck and shit. Real macabre stuff. But incredibly intelligent, interesting, funny lads as well. So the audience was treated to these two lads torturing themselves on stage as such for entertainment. And the reactions and the screams from the audience was incredible. So I'll have to listen to that back. Because essentially what you're dealing with is... The reason i wanted to do it as i was thinking

wouldn't be interesting to do an audio podcast where you have you're you're listening to a visual spectacle happen on stage and you're listening to people's screams so that could be a bit of crack but on that night um because i just want to give a shout out we'd finished the gig and we ended up in the owner of a a tea house came to the gig and met my tour manager and said did the lads want to come back to my tea house i'll cook a lot of fucking food and they can hang out and we did so we went to a place i thought i'd call Martin and his girlfriend sorry I can't is his name Martin? his name might be Martin

and I can't remember his girlfriend's name but the place is called Bampot Bohemian in Toronto and they were very nice to us

and they took us in there and we had a little bit of a sesh not even a sesh tell you what we'd finished the gig and we were kind of half thinking fuck it we're flying in the morning let's not get pissed but we went back to this tea house and they served us delicious food and chai tea masala tea with whiskey in it which i've never tasted and i urge you to give it a lash I've never tasted it before I love proper masala tea I call it chai tea but that's ridiculous because chai means tea in Indian so essentially I'm saying tea tea it's like when you say ATM machine you're just saying automatic

teller machine machine but masala tea is black tea that you normally drink in Ireland but brewed with like cinnamon and cardamom and these lovely spices and you have it with a load of milk that's very sweet so it's this sweet spicy tea but where we were in Bampot Bohemian in Toronto they were throwing whiskey into it

and it was just magnificent that was my best experience of being in Toronto, that lovely relaxing last night so there you go how much of a rant was that? 12 minutes I wanted this to be a quick fucking introduction

anyway here's the crack this week I'm too tired to do a podcast I'm too fucking tired I need to go to bed I haven't slept in a day now I don't want to give you a live podcast

because I gave you a live podcast this last week and I don't want to go into a hot take because I'm too tired and there's no research so I'm going to give you a fucking very very special treat this week a very special treat I'm going to

I'm going to play play one of my short stories which i haven't done since jesus the first episodes of this podcast so i'm going to take a short story from my book the gospel according to blind boy something that i pre-recorded and you'll know as well what i'm trying to do with these stories is it's not just me reading a story I also create a soundtrack to go with it so like I play I play and produce instruments that describe the mood of the story so it becomes this new thing where it's half story half song do you know so i'm gonna play for you part one of a story from my book called arse children and arse children is now this this is all intended to go on a fucking audiobook but i don't know what the crack is

with the audiobook or when it's coming out. It's up to my book company. So I'm going to put out part one of Arse Children. Arse Children is essentially, first off, it's probably the most popular story in my book of short stories. It's the one that gets the most reaction from people, that people say they like the most. It's essentially a novella i think it's about 30 000 words in total what i'm going to be reading to you today is part one which is about 15 000 words and i'll have to give you a content warning about it to be honest so Arse Children like I love it, I'm very happy with it but it's

what can I warn you about a lot of people listen to this podcast but like their parents or shit like that or their family sits around or some people will listen to the podcast and work this story is rather sexually explicit

so there's graphic depictions of sex another thing with it too which is important is I'm only playing part one of this I won't be playing part two because I won't be allowed by my book company there's no way I'm going to get away with that

if after hearing this you need to hear part two get your hands on the book gospel according to blind boy either buy it it's not that expensive anymore or one of your friends might have it a lot of people bought it so yeah this is here's here's the fear that i have by playing the part one of arse children arse children is written in the style of the unreliable narrator it's it's it's fiction in the unreliable narrator style it's not blind by its characters that i have created and these characters are you know it's going to be it's slightly problematic because the characters in this story

are problematic the other thing too there's historical inaccuracies in there they're deliberate what I don't want basically next week is a shit load of emails and DMs from people going, here's several things about that story that are inaccurate.

Or here's several things about that story that were problematic. Okay? In order to understand Irish children, it has to be kind of viewed as a whole, as an entire. There's a thing with, always say about storytelling storytelling often follows a very simple three-act structure set up conflict resolution and the overarching story of our children as a whole what you're only getting today is set up in a conflict and i am not giving you the resolution because the resolution is part two now you can have many three-act structures within three-act structures so ask children that i'm part one is a three-act structure but it's two acts of an overarching

three-act structure if you get me so that's kind of the shtick. So reserve judgment for part one of Arse Children until you take it upon yourself to read all of Arse Children. I've said Arse Children a lot there. Christ. A lot of people ask me, what's the story about? All I can say is look it's about Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins

and one theme that has been prevalent in anything I've done since I started back to rubber bandits when I was fucking 15, 16 I've always been fascinated, deeply, deeply fascinated with

Irish, figures of Irish republicanism. The IRA, Michael Collins, De Valera. I've been fascinated with these things as a man from Limerick. Not, how we'll say De Valera and Michael Collins and what they mean and their what they are the idea of the mean to Irish masculinity when I grew up in Limerick the IRA De Valera Michael Collins what they meant to us culturally as teenagers, these were signifiers of Irish manliness and being tough and being hard. And slowly over time, this is what started to fascinate me. Because we lived in the south of Ireland, the free south, the free state, the IRA existed in Limerick when I was growing up

the IRA were present but they weren't very visible like if you wanted to get in contact with the IRA in Limerick when I was growing up you'd really have to go out of your way but that's very different in the north of Ireland where in certain areas

the IRA essentially act as the police of Ireland, where in certain areas the IRA essentially acted as the police of communities. So I grew up at what you'd call, I suppose, southern privilege. We would write IRA on a wall or a bus stop, and we wouldn't even know what it meant. We just knew this is what you write when you're a teenager and you're trying to find your masculinity and you're trying to show your friends that you're tough you write IRA on a wall and all you really know is that they're big men with guns

and they're Irish that's it in Limerick if you did that you got away with it if you're up in Belfast or Derry and you write IRA on a wall someone might have an issue with that and go hold on a second

who told you you could do that the IRA might have an actual fucking problem with it do you get what I'm saying so we grew up with this completely detached idea of republicanism where it

culturally as a teenager it was not political it had nothing to do with we knew nothing about the fucking politics we knew that about the fall of fucking politics we knew that michael collins was a big hard man who died by a bullet and devil era less such we didn't really idolize devil era but definitely michael collins definitely the ira the rat these were considered cool things we didn't know what they were they were all about masculinity and finding your toughness

and your identity and they would enter what I used to fascinate me was how the IRA would effortlessly within our culture and the codes of our teenage masculine culture how the IRA would effortlessly flow within something like NWA or Snoop Dogg or Bob Marley or Tupac so we lived in a world a world of cultural codes where our masculinity we were trying to find our masculinity and our identity and masculinity in Limerick was about how tough and hard you were and how not afraid you were so our totems of this were tupac bob marley snoop dogg michael collins uh ira balaclavas and these things all intermixed and they didn't as i got older i used to look at it and go fuck this is nuts like you'd see graffiti and limerick

of a drawing of bob marley and he's got a speech bubble that says up the rat bob marley has nothing to do with the ira the person who would have made that drawing did not know that it what the commonality was is that all these things mean i am a man i am a masculine irish man that's what these things mean so from an early age creatively I was always fascinated with this. And I wanted to express. Because I found it surreal and hilarious and funny. To use totems of Irish republicanism. And see how far you can stretch it.

How crazy can you make it. Can you put Tupac beside Michael Collins. collins fighting in the irish war of independence and for that to feel okay how far can you stretch that can you write a song about the ira but quentin tarantino is a member of the ira or uma thurman can you fuck with these this codified language to a point and bring in really surreal references and put it over a hip hop beat so that when you listen to it it doesn't make sense but it does make sense

so that's always fascinated me and going back years more than 10 years back to songs like Up The Ra or even Prank Phone Calls before that that dealt with fucking Tupac Bob Marley fucking playing handball up

against the wall loads of stuff like that playing with different totems of masculinity because they're detached from their actual meaning it's hyperrealism it's hyperreal we did not in Limerick

experience the provisional IRA we experienced the hyperreal IRAa which were an ira that did not exist they existed only in the heads of limerick teenagers and the hyper real ira and the hyper real tupac and hyper real bob marley all existed in a codified universe where they could fluidly move within each other and that was okay and this is always fascinated me creatively so i suppose this story arse children it's just i would have written this in maybe 2015 2016 it's just a continuation of that ongoing process that i keep coming back to in my work and i think what it is it's a it's masculinity that's what I'm getting

at you're not aware of these things when you're doing it if if you're if I was to approach a piece of like back when I was a fucking kid writing up the ra I didn't go at that going oh this is a this is a probe of Irish masculinity uh played out through hyper reality I didn't know that I was going with what felt right in my heart and what made me feel or achieve flow and what felt good and i was like fuck it this is banging and it makes sense and it's funny good so i was happy with it looking back i'm able to go that's hyper realism there's a bit of semiotics in there um it's it's a study of masculinity i can look at it now and go that's what was going on in my unconscious mind.

But that's how it works with anything you create. When you're in a state of flow, you're going on feelings alone. You trust that the cognitive, intellectual part of your mind that's done the reading and done the knowledge is working in the background, but ultimately you're chasing feelings. And if you do it right it just comes out

so yeah here's a bit of Arse Children for ye part one of Arse Children it's nearly an hour long you're in for a treat yeah content warning very sexually explicit you might want to listen to it loud listen to it on your own

it's problematic consciously problematic there's historical inaccuracies You might want to listen to it loud. Listen to it on your own. It's problematic. Consciously problematic. There's historical inaccuracies. It is the set up and conflict. Of a larger story. And if you want the resolution. Go and seek out part two of Arse Children.

Yart. Oh fuck. Ocarina pause. Alright. Hold on. yart, oh fuck, ocarina pause alright, hold on is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil.

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be a patron of this podcast you can um patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and you can give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month if you're enjoying what i'm doing and if you're listening to this every week and i'm entertaining you here's a way that you can really meaningfully pay me back and make a real change to my life if you're someone who can't afford that that's grand then you listen for free maybe somewhat sometime down the line you might be able to be a patron but this is how we do it this is a model that's based on kindness and soundness and it's working fine so far. There's people who are patrons and there's people who are not patrons.

I'm not complaining. Working great for me. Alright. So I don't think, let's keep that going. Right. Here is Arse Children. I am happy to play for you, Arse Children. Oh, one last thing.

Yeah. The reason why I'm giving a content warning on this the story has existed in my book since 2016 when the book came out i haven't had one complaint okay it's universally people like it no one found it problematic that's because it's a book on a page when you read a book right and it's sound and it might be offensive or dodgy or whatever when you read it in in your own head it's your own voice so you tend to have a bit more compassion for your own voice when you're reading it but i'm switching mediums now so now i'm reading arse children for the first time so contextually it changes it slightly so it might not be problematic on the page but hearing me essentially do a radio play

that might contextually change it a bit and then it becomes something that people might have an issue with but like I said, listen to the whole thing get your hands on part 2 30 minutes of fucking talking and I wanted a quick intro, alright God bless lads Chapter 8 Arse Children Part 1

Eamon de Valera bent his weak chest out over the alabaster windowsill of the mansion house and cast an anxious eye across the crawling November fog on Dawson Street which had sauntered up the liffy from the fat smog flumes of the Guinness Brewery with that

dog food smell it was close to 11pm and he awaited the glimmer man who would extinguish the gas lights and drown the cobbles in a covert darkness. A slight man, with veins, ticking, that cut like canals on a map, up to his eyelids. De Valera had the appearance of a sun-bleached star corpse,

who'd been tailored in a Savile Row suit. On his long nose rested circular-framed brass glasses, with thick lenses that magnified his pupils comedically. Young children would single him out as he walked down Sackville Street and make jovial quips about his gigantic magnified eyeballs. This hurt him deeply, and the pain would often resurface when he scolded his subordinates rather brutally with a thin length of copper wrapped in damp hessian. A great trouble was coming to Dublin City. Eamon's chattering teeth exhaled pops of tepid breath that became visible in the frigid air of night and spelled out doom as they laddered up towards the sky like demons escaping hell.

Eamon de Valera, President of Dáil Éireann, had been waging a successful war on the occupying British Crown forces in his country. But the British had had enough, and Prime Minister Llyde George himself had dispatched a specialist group of undercover intelligence agents to crush the aspiring Irish Republic. The IRA were cornered in a Turkish bathhouse of their own creation. Eamon de Valera was wearing neither breeches nor underpants as he ogled Dawson Street

in anticipation of the Glimmer Men. But had opted to keep his shiny brown brogues and black socks on. Behind him had stood a large man. A younger man, in suspenders and slacks. His proud torso and stocky arms imposed a presence on the empty boardroom of the first doll. This man was General Michael Collins. Normally resolute, confident and stubborn

tonight Collins had the look of an abandoned child his sweat rose from his pits and had the faint tang of black current jam a man gets when he's stressed this honk congested the boardroom he approached Dev and rested his chin on his shoulder, with one hand on the cord of the Venetian blinds. Not a word was spoken between them as they waited passively for the Glimmer Man to extinguish the Dawson Street gaslights. The gloomy boardroom was irradiated

tangy by the citrus green haze that penetrated the window through the slots on the open blind, casting the exploded projection of the two men against the palace head, which was a horrid omelette of papers and different coloured strings of twine pinned down where relevant. Photos and documents smuggled out from the intelligence catacombs of Dublin Castle were sliced up with horizontal lines of shadow that sang a slow song to the Cairo gang. Under each photo was listed the name and address of each of the IRA's potential judge, jury and executioner. Dangerous men, who served their time dismantling revolutions in the most exotic stretches of the British Empire. Lieutenant Henry Anglis, 22 Lower Mount Street. The most exotic stretches of the British Empire. 28 Pembroke Street Upper

Names like vandalised gravestones on the wall. Dev jolted as a flicker hit the inside of his glasses. The Glimmer Man had arrived. Dressed in a wax trench coat and well over six feet tall, he extended his wooden pole up and down the footpaths and attended to the Georgian lampposts. They were always tall men. He opened the little glass door, 15 feet in the sky, with the hook on his pole, and duly turned a switch that extinguished the flow of gas.

Michael Collins watched as his ulcer played up and was reminded of his time working in the Welsh mines as a gas buy, holding a canary. The gaslight flames looked like little yellow canaries in cages getting doused to death in black paint heralded aloft Dawson Street like puck fair goats.

Glimmer men did this all over Dublin City and by the time they were finished it would be morning and they'd have to turn them back on again. Glimmer men didn't sleep.

Soon Dawson Street was in complete darkness. A dark so dark that your ears take over from your eyes and turn up the volume of distant horses trotting and the hollers from late pubs a few blocks over. Devon Collins stepped back from the window.

What are we going to do? We're going to take the fuckers out I have my best men ready to go they know their faces they know their names we have the pistols you got from the yanks

I'm on it Dev your men ha your men the twelve apostles is it what could they do to anyone half of them Connolly's ex lackeys

the other half with the smell of cow shit on their collars ah Jesus Dev what am I supposed to do the fucking squad Michael get real the Cairo gang have faced worse than the squad they've taken down moors in Algeria

who wouldn't think twice to strapping dynamite to themselves. De Valera removed his shoes and socks. Michael Collins dissolved into a leather swivel chair as Dev crept across the room towards a minibar, completely naked from the waist down.

Caprahina, Michael. Go on, I'm sorry, Dev. De Valera began to crush fresh limes in a rocks glass with the end of a bar spoon. He sprinkled sticky brown de Marera sugar onto the pulpy zesty juice. He reached into a bucket to retrieve ice cubes,

which he basked with his fist and danced into the glass with long fingers, upon which he poured 80 proof Brazilian Caxacha, a white rum variant made from sugarcane juice he shook the glass gently and while maintaining eye contact with Collins stirred the drink with a steak

knife, which he pushed deep into the back of his throat and pulled slowly out savouring the limey, sugary rummy concoction that finished on his lips. He handed Collins his caperahina. Before you take the swally of that caperahina, remind yourself that Cromwell sold your ancestors to Barbados. Your pint?

He sold them as slaves, treated worse than the African on the sugar cane plantations. Up and down South America. That Caprahina you drink is an Irish man's drink. Alright, Dev, I will. I've a better plan to take out the Cairo

gang. No need for the squad, Michael. Michael Collins' face jdered with sheer bemusement at De Valera's assertion. What did he mean? What clan could be better than getting the squad to take out the Cairo gang? What plan could be better than the blood anger of Joe Leonard, Paddy Griffin or Frank Bolster, the greatest guns of the IRA? Collins had already given commands for the assassination to take place in a week to coincide with the All-Ireland Final

and provide some civilian cover. That shit really confused the Brit soldiers. They broke down when a load of tip lads arrived on donkeys. The wheels were already in motion and he didn't want to risk countermanding his orders lest a dispatch be intercepted by the G-men. The wheels were already in motion and he didn't want to risk countermanding his orders, lest a dispatch be intercepted by the G-men. What do you mean, Dev?

Fine notes of coconut on this cachacha. An oak barrel they had it in, I'd say. Maybe even ash, judging by the nose. Have you ever had reason to acquaint yourself with a cooper, Michael? Dev, the squad, tell me what you meant. There's things I haven't told you, Michael. I have powers. The whiskey?

No, powers. Catechistic powers. Dark knowledge that I attained from my time with the Carmelite Order. They ushered the compassionate heart of our Holy Mother under the auspices of St Berthold to grant special abilities on my body in the name of Ireland and her noble destiny. Fuck you, Annabelle Dev. You haven't gone balling's mill on me, have you?

I've been granted a womb, Michael, in my body. The General crossed his legs with an uncomfortable disbelief and a desire to leave the room. However, despite his frustration with De Valera's loose grasp on reality and increasing inebriation, Collins was a resolute professional, in full awareness that his President was addressing him in the offices of Dáil Éireann. He took in a large portion of air and remained calm while De Valera explained further. The Carmelite order asked Our Lady to grant me the ability to give birth, and she answered this plea. But, but you have male equipment dangling off you, Dev.

I'm looking at it now, before you. No, Michael. In my bowels. Our lady grew a womb, just underneath my lard intestine. It allows me to give birth to two foot tall warriors from my hole. Several in one go, if I wish. For a time like now, when Ireland needs it most. However, I need darkness to do this. That's why we waited for the Glimmer Man.

Is that why you took your pants off? It is, Michael. These arse children, I can birth them. Do you know the way I've been asking the volunteers to skin dogs on the north side? Because they might be Protestant. Of course. Well, I've been hoarding their pelts for a day like today.

I'm going to give birth to my Carmelite Arse children. We'll dress them as dogs and put guns in their hands and they will assassinate the Cairo gang. We can't do it with the squad. It's too hot out there. Every G-man from Dublin Castle is watching us, watching our volunteers.

We need to do something that's never been done. This is the plan that's going to unfold. It's the only plan. I don't know what to say to this, Dev. This is a lot to take in. It's perfect, Michael.

You tell the squad to hold back they can stay in their beds the arse children will take out the spies then when the right time comes we'll credit the assassinations to your squad, every paper will believe it the men will be heroes for centuries

the truth would be too much for Ireland The men will be heroes for centuries. The truth would be too much for Ireland. The squad will be shot if they go out next week. Please trust me, Michael. Dev, we've been through a lot together and as mad as this sounds, I'm listening.

Thank you, Michael. But the birth of these arse children isn't easy. I need your assistance. Whatever you require, Dev, I'll be here. I'm your servant. We'll do it for Mother Ireland and for the men who died in 16. No, Michael. I need your assistance.

I can only carry these arse children and expel them from my rectum. But they require a father. A father who is a warrior. A warrior that can trace his blood back to the ancient high kings of Arran. You must father these arse children, Mick.

I have a short gestation period. Approximately six to eight days. We need to get working immediately so that our arse children can perform the assassinations next week. Any longer and it'll be too late. The Cairo gang will have gotten all they need to take us out by then. De Valera's mercurial eyes said it all. Michael Collins was faced with a dilemma. The only

way to save Ireland was for him to have anal sex with De Valera. He had a queer feeling all night. As soon as the Dáil adjourned, De Valera had removed some clothing for no apparent reason. Collins found this ritual peculiar. However, Dev was a strange fish and had spent his time in Borland's Mill during the Easter Rising wearing only pyjama bottoms.

Collins was always very sensitive of Dev's rattly disposition. But this time it was different. The conviction in Dev's face when he spoke about the Arsechildren was otherworldly in its intensity. This didn't appear to be a stunt nor a cry for help under intense duress.

This was real. It was happening. And Collins knew he'd have to discard any personal heterosexual inhibitions to secure the freedom of Ireland and the safety of his men. With the broad awkwardness of a 40-year-old man at a Debs, he offered his services.

Well, how are we going to go about it then? Will you have a lemon daiquiri, Michael? I will. Dave advanced to the minibar and procured a shaker into which he placed two fists of ice cubes. Expertly, he poured nine parts white Cuban rum, five parts of fresh lemon juice, three parts sugar syrup, a dash of Angostura bitters and flaringly performed a theatrical shake before decanting the bitter amalgam into two cocktail glasses and garnishing with lemon zest

and a maraschino sherry from a jar belonging to Erskine Childers Ah Dev, we'll never hear the fucking end of it if you go taking Erskine's cherries Tonight is an exception Michael Well then put my one back in the jar Ah, Dev, we'll never hear the fucking end of it if you go taking Erskine's cherries. Tonight is an exception, Michael. Well then, put my one back in the jar. I'll just have the lemon for the garnish, no need for the cherry.

More for me. De Valera greedily placed two maraschino cherries on the side of his daiquiri, with a flagrant disregard for Erskine's ration. The daiquiri is a special drink, Michael. It comes from your ancestors, who fought for the Mexicans against the Yanks in the 1840s. Adiv, come on. Hear me out, Michael.

The sweet daiquiri was the only thing that cooled their lips in the hot adobe cottages of Santiago as Yankee cannonballs whirled overhead. Men with names like McCarty and Scanlan. Meditate on that when you take the first swally of Daiquiri. A wildeve. And they were called gringos, the Irish soldiers who fought with the Mexicans. Do you know why they called them Gringos?

Can we move on to the issue at hand, please, Eamon? De Valera stumbled forward and whispered the next phrase into Collins' tired face. Because they were always singing, Mick. Singing. Green grow the lilacs when they were fighting that war. Fighting in white alkali desert flats, scattered with beige cacti, and not a blade of grass to be seen for years. That song was their sad cry for Aaron.

The Mexicans misheard it and thought they were singing green grows. Ever since it means foreigner over there. Say it with me, Michael. Gringos. Now have a drop. Dev, can we get down to business, please? Because, get your hands off my collar, man. We need a very serious discussion

about how the mechanics of this operation will work. And I'll be honest, I'm very uncomfortable and a bit frightened. Fucking sit down opposite me there and we'll plan it out. Will I make a pair of martinis? No, sit down to fuck. Dev fell back. Collins heard the familiar squelch of bare arse on leather

and got a shudder of reality. As far as he knew, he was fully heterosexual and resolutely devoted to his girlfriend Kitty Kiernan. He'd had his knee tremblers in Soho during the stint as Apostle Clerk. But other than that, he was quite inexperienced. He was a Catholic, more out of duty than faith, but a follower of Rome nonetheless. He knew that relations between two men was a mortal sin, punishable by hellfire, but the occupation of Ireland by the Brits was a sin too.

Who was he to measure up sins? Dev, on the other hand, was staunchly Catholic, at one point even considering the priesthood. Collins anxiously pondered how this situation was to sit in De Valera's moral lunchbox. Cite is between two men is a sin, Dev. Is killing not a sin, Michael? Have you not tugged the trigger of your luger at many assassinak? This is war, Dev. There's no sin in war. Exactly, Michael. And you'll be fathering these children in the efforts of war they'll be more useful than ten thousand rifles

or a hundred bombs or a thousand dead British soldiers then I suppose shouldn't we kiss first or do some ghost petting Michael Collins grappled the milky white daiquiri in his paws and necked it back his craw,

aching for a vessel of more significant purchase. He sequestered the bottle of white rum and took brutal command of several inordinate gulps. To the disdain of De Valera, who urged him to at least take a squeeze of some class of citrus zest out of respect for the candour of the neat spirit. Take off your top, Dev, for fuck's sake, ushered Michael,

who had internally resolved the materiality of ensuing copulation by appropriating the hawkish zeal of a team captain at a county final. Tug off to fuck! Collins clapped his sweaty hands and paced aggressively, pausing at intervals to hop up and down on the spot as he removed his clothing and yelped. Then De Valera unbuttoned his white cotton band collared shirt with his bony hands jittery from the drink. The room smelled like men. Azure moonlight trailed in to reveal a torso like a splatter of dog's vomit that a child had flicked old hay pennies in, a pale sunken chest darted

with malignant black moles and the occasional jutting rib. Collins spat on the rug and eyed Dev up as he would the crossbar of a stolen bike. He launched forward and shouldered Dev as if they were competing for the high ball. Dev's much smaller frame battered off the wall behind him, the force of which disturbed the mounted portrait of Thomas McDonagh. Grounded and staggering from daiquiris, Dev attempted to repel himself up by the cord of the Venetian blind. He swung pendulous like a frantic cat for a short moment, then tugged the blind loose from its fixture,

down on top of him in a fierce loud crash of aluminium corrugates. Jesus Christ, Dev, you will alert a bailiff or a sergeant with the knives. Do you not know the G-men are always posted near? Gin, said De Valera as he splayed out on the floor naked in a metal Venetian gown. Collins dutifully swiped a bottle of cork-dry gin, took a few gulps himself

and poured a skinful down into De Valera's open mouth which splashed off his protruding teeth. Water bored me with gin Michael pleaded Dev I can't have you passing out either Dev warned Collins Turn over De Valera rolled over

so that he was belly down on the corrugated aluminium blinds Collins shook off his own slacks and removed his long johns. He drooped down over De Valera as if he was to perform 100 press-ups, his flaccid penis dangling like a greyhound's tail,

grazing up and down the crack of Dev's arse. Well, what now? Are you ready for it? You're the president, said Michael. You'll have to kiss my neck or I won't be able to receive you, said Dev. Collins lowered his chest so that it was pressed against Dev's back. He obediently protruded the tip of his tongue and darted it all along the inside of De Valera's ear and hairline. Dev could smell the vinegar tang of his saliva and was becoming uncomfortable with the

Venetian blinds sticking into his ribs. Collins too was deflated by the oily fortnight of human hair grease banging up his nostrils. Get up, this way isn't working for me, said Dev. Collins leapt to his feet and pulled Dev up by the hand.

Well it's not well it's not it's not great for me either Dev to be honest and plus whatever about you getting relaxed I'll need to get excited so what are your thoughts there I'll have to take your prick in the gob that's the most judicious approach that might calm me down too

and we'll be off then said him and De Valera plan B so said Collins That might calm me down too, and we'll be off then, said Eamon de Valera. Plan B, so, said Collins. The two men moved the procedure to a sturdy writing desk situated near the minibar. Dev retrieved the small brown apothecary bottle of bergamot oil that he had been using to add body to single malt whiskies and bourbons. Right, I'll commence a gobble. When you feel that you can keep your prick up,

you rub a fist of this bergamot oil all over it and then go straight up my hole when I turn around. Is the consecution of these constituents clear, Michael? Tis, Dev. De Valera dropped to his knees and took Michael Collins' floppy dick into his mouth. It was dry, warm and had a rubbery degree of stretch to it. He began rolling his tongue around the foreskin,

which ushered into existence a slight promise of tumescence. Collins, with eyes closed, tried to imagine his days back in Soho, when he would get a two-bob gobble from the East End girls behind the theatre, with the smell of perfume and talcum rising up to meet his nose as their heads bobbed him to climax. His mind drifted until he heard a muffled You're ready now from Dev. Collins pulled out and drenched his hands and penis in slick bergamot oil.

The room began to smell very strongly of Earl Grey tea. De Valera stood up and climbed on the low writing desk prone on all fours with the cheeks of his arse spread as wide as possible. Now, get in now. Grab my lad while you ease in. Tug it like you're ringing the bell to stop the tram.

About that speed to dilate my hole Collins obeyed instruction like stone penetrating cold wax he forced his dick into Dev's arsehole ah go handy go handy screamed Dev you'll have to just take it whatever way it comes Eamon

I'm concentrating on staying hard said Mick throw the rest of the bergamot oil at it loosen it up Collins poured oil on the slow thrusting penis and his pelvis slapped against Dev's hoop like an open hand on the hide of a cow at Mart

tell me I'm George V Dev what? tell me I'm George V and you're her highness Mary of Tech and you want me to fuck you I'll fucking lose my horn if you don't Come on You're George V

Fuck me, Your Highness Tell me you're Mary of Teck I'm your devoted wife, Mary of Teck Make shite of me I will Tell me what you want me to do to Ireland Tell me I want you to crush them, my powerful king.

Crush the ungrateful Irish swine, your highness. More. Starve the people of Ireland. Let their children die. Send in the soldiers to kill their leaders. Who? Michael Collins, George. Send the finest soldiers in the empire

to murder Michael Collins and drag his mutilated corpse through Saxville Street on horses. As a message to the Hindu and the Arab who dare to follow his example. A dark presence descended upon the room which seemed to strip it of air or smell or time. De Valera's rectum rejected Collins' penis as it began to close over completely. De Valera's rectum rejected Collins' penis as it began to close over completely. A deafening roar, like a distant bell, shook the parlour and knocked all photographs of the Cairo gang off the wall where they were stuck.

De Valera's torso lit up with an intense glow as if he had swallowed the bulb of a lighthouse. It's happening. It's working? Is it? It's happening, Mick. It's the hand of St Berthold, acting in vicarage of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart. The conception of my womb has begun.

My arse-child pregnancy has started. The room returned to normality. Both men sat sweaty and naked in the dark, while the overpowering stench of bergamot oil in the hot clammy sex air. I'll open the window, said Collins, who lit up a sweet Afton cigarette

while looking out over the darkened Dawson Street with mixed emotions. He felt comfortable with having had sex with his good friend and president. It was a new experience and had opened sexual horizons for him however his mind poked at the open sore

that was his climactic vision of being King George V raining down a fist of steel on the poor Irish people who Collins had worked so hard to liberate why did such a contradictory window of voyeuristic power excite him sexually in that way?

Why had this part of him laid dormant for so long before emerging tonight? Why did he associate colonial brutality with heightened sexual arousal? He began to feel an empty loneliness for having the burden of such internal revelation and also for being unable to express it to another soul. Not even a priest in confession, he felt embarrassed

for having discovered this fantasy in the presence of his comrade, De Valera. It's kicking already, Mick. De Valera sat on the edge of the writing desk, wearing a shirt and holding his back. De Valera sat on the edge of the writing desk, wearing a shirt and holding his back. Mick, I can feel it in my back. They've started to grow already. Make me a Mai Tai.

What? Are you serious already? It's a speedy womb I have, Mick. I'll be showing in the morning, with the help of God. I'll have a litter of about sixteen. That gives us a clear error of margin if one of the assassinations goes awry. My ties, please, Michael. We need to celebrate. Collins opened up the minibar.

Dev, you're the man for the drinks. Can you not make it yourself? I'm pregnant in a bad way, Mick. I'll tell you the recipe. Reach up there to the cupboard and fetch those two tiki glasses. They're the brown ceramic ones with the design said Dev Collins fetched both vessels

which had a type of Polynesian or Maori design on them almost like the sculptures of the giant heads on Easter Island we'll do a poor man's version Mick you wouldn't have the skill for the shaker half the juice of a lime into each glass teaspoon of the almond or yatch syrup. Then two shots of the white rum. Collins followed

Dev's instruction to a tee. Now this bit is important. Lob in a teaspoon of the demerara sugar into each glass. Give a small stir and fill up three quarters ways with the crushed ice. Alright, is that looking okay? Said Collins.

Tis. Now the last bit, a dash of the blue curacao. It's the orange smelling stuff. And on top of all that a nice generous slurp of that dark Jamaican rum. A straw in each, a slice of pineapple and a few of Erskine's

cherries. Dev said with a cheeky wink. Ah Jesus Dev, not Erskine's cherries. Dev said with a cheeky wink. Ah, Jesus, Dev, not Erskine's cherries again. He'll box you into the face. Michael scolded at his president. He wouldn't hit a pregnant man, Mick. Not even Childers would chance that.

Both men laughed and sipped their Mai Tais. So how is this going to pan out, Dev? Over the next few days, I'll grow bigger and bigger as the arse children develop. I'll start to grow a bump on my back and will only be able to situate myself on all fours. As you saw, my anus has closed up completely. It will remain like that for the next week. So a liquid diet is essential.

It will remain like that for the next week. So a liquid diet is essential. I suggest daiquiris, white russians, negronis and the odd old fashion to balance it out. I'm not complaining, Dev, but that's a full-on job. Could we not, like, get a few of the men to chip in? No, Michael. The men must never find out. This is an immaculate conception.

It's like quantum mechanics. Have you heard of that? It means the incubation can only exist when it's not being observed by an unfaithful party. It is imperative that only you and I stay in this room for the week. No one must find out about any of this. What will I tell the men? I'll instruct the doll to take the week off. You'll tell the squad to prepare for assassinations as normal.

They're all just... They'll think the two of us are preparing to take out the Cairo gang. And we're sorting logistics. It'll be grand. I'll need you here, Mick. We can communicate to the outside world with the telegraph. This is our bunker for the coming days. Collins raised his palm towards his face and moved it in a wiping motion

from his nose to his chin repeatedly in internal disquiet. He was impressed with the level of foresight and planning that Dev had envisioned for the birth of the Irish children. But sure then again he'd been preparing for this day for many years. What is it, Michael? You're looking a bit shook. I said some stuff, Dev, while we were conceiving.

I said some stuff about King George V, about wanting to be him and to crush our countrymen. And I played along and pretended I was the Queen, so what? It frightened me It frightened me to have gotten such sexual pleasure off that role play It frightened me that I had that I had that inside myself

Have you ever heard of a man called Fried Michael? I haven't met his acquaintance, no He's an Austrian man, a psychologist no less I've read his work in journals. He has very interesting things to say about sex. He says we all have these deep, dark urges for

murder and writing. And that we keep them locked down. Because they are too frightening for us to think about. That if we could think about them, we'd go stone mad. So they find other avenues to express themselves that are more acceptable to us. How does that explain my urges though, Eamon?

Well, Mr. Fryde reckons that the desire to kill and the desire to have sex are very closely linked in our minds. It wouldn't surprise me at all that a great leader and patriot such as yourself would get sexually aroused by the potential for absolute power. There's an eroticism to the control one would have in that situation. But I wanted to destroy my own people, Dev.

I wanted to be an arrogant bastard of a king. Mick, I would imagine that your repressed desire to murder your countrymen has sublimated itself into an organised passion for destroying the colonial powers of the British Empire. As a defence mechanism, that would be my verdict on the issue based on the work of Mr Freud.

But does that make it right, Dev? When Ireland is a free country, then it'll be right. And damn any man who says otherwise. Sure, fuck it, Dev. Now here's me thinking I'm a freak, you know. And you sitting there with arse children growing out of a womb in your bowels. You're correct as usual.

Get up the yard to feck. That night the two men fell asleep in the offices of Dáil Éireann in the mansion house on Dawson Street. Collins experienced very intense and strange dreams as a result of uncovering hidden and threatening material from his sexually repressed

unconscious mind. He awoke with a splitting cocktail headache and the morning sun stinging his eyes. In his ear he heard very heavy breathing. As he looked up, De Valera was laying on his side with a tumour of roughly two metres protruding from his lower back, which was veiny and translucent. As he inspected closer, he could make out tiny shapes like pupae, their little veins and beating hearts.

These were the Arse children. De Valera's face was strained and red as he attempted to puff out words. Vermouth. Hold on. Vermouth. Collins fixed a glass of French Vermouth, which he poured into Dev's mouth. Dev's back pulsated ecstatically as the alcohol flowed around the spine sack and into the arse children There was a knock on the door It was Cothell Brewer

I've a dispatch for you General Collins Not now Cothell Myself and Dev have important business here Go home for the day said General Collins But Mick It's about the movements of the Cairo gang,

Brewer exclaimed. Go home for fuck's sake and await our next orders, Cottle. We have it under control in here. Tell this squad to stay away from Darlaren unless there's news of a raid by Dublin Castle. Will do, Mick, said Brewer, as he

descended the staircase and left through the front door Dev if your back is the size of a sow after one night what will it be like after a week brandy or port please Mick

as the week passed the pregnant tumour on Dev's back grew to be several metres long by day five it was the length of three men and two metres wide. De Valera's fragile body was merely a brittle appendage on one end of a bulbous, translucent sausage-like mass. The arse children began to take shape and had little scrunched faces and black eyes as they kicked and grabbed at the skin of their gigantic womb. When one moved, the rest would follow

and the whole addendum would undulate like a sick lung. This would cause De Valera to groan in intense agony and the acidic green bile would trail out his mouth as his internal organs pressed against his ribcage. It was upsetting for Michael to watch this happen to his dear friend. Collins began to cover the appendage in warm, red cotton towels, as this kept the arse children docile. As acting Minister for Finance, as well as General of the IRA, Collins was growing concerned with the amount

of Ireland's petty cash that he was spending on liquor and cocktail ingredients, which were delivered every evening by van. New bottles of spirits arrived in crates at the back door of the mansion house, when the previous night's empty bottles were left for collection. The Arsht children had inherited De Valera's appetite for tiki cocktails. Collins had developed significant skill in churning out several Mai Tais and Singapore slings at a time. Eamon's face was frozen in petrified misery as Collins poured drink after drink of sweet alcoholic mixtures into his mouth to satiate the pans of the shit litter. The room also smelled very strongly of faeces.

Dev's rectum had closed up at conception and would not open again until the moment of birth, resulting in a backlog of excrement that acted as an amniotic fluid. It did, however, leak into De Valera's bloodstream, where it was expelled as breath and sweat that smelled like an open sewer. By day seven of gestation what was left of Eamon De Valera was merely a solitary face protruding from a pulsating mass of thin flesh that had taken up 80% of the boardroom.

Collins had come to realise that the pregnancy was going to most definitely kill Dev if it was allowed to go on one more day. He recognised that these arse children were a parasite who would likely feed upon Devalera when born, like the offspring of spiders. He searched the mass of skin for his friend's face, which was now just an unfamiliar arrangement of mouth and pupils in a wall of flesh. I can't watch you like this, Dev. This is killing you.

I'm cutting them out to save you, Dev. I don't give a fuck. It's you or those children and I'm choosing you. If giving birth to them means you dying. No! I'm doing it, Dev. I'll take a blade to them. No, you must never abort.

Ireland will not succeed without these children. Let me die. I can't, Dev. I'm cutting them out. If you cut them out prematurely, they will die, Michael. And all is for nothing.

I must die for them to be born I kept this from you as I know you would not cooperate let me go for Ireland Collins burst into uncontrollable tears

at the agony his companion was experiencing do not cry Michael He cried in horrible tears at the agony his companion was experiencing. Do not cry, Michael. These children will save our nation. Let me go. Collins raised his hand to his forehead and saluted his president for the last time as life slipped from de Valera's open eyes. The twiggy remains of his hands and legs went limp and floundered. At that, the appendage thrashed and bounced, as the rectum at the end burst open with a flurry of slurry that spilled on the carpet.

Collins pulled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and proceeded to deliver the arse children at the request of his dearly departed friend and ally. quest of his dearly departed friend and ally. One by one they burst forth and started to gorge on the shit and skin of De Valera's 15 meter stretched body. Each arse child was roughly two foot in height. They were round like Gaelic footballs with skin like dry cured pork. They had tiny legs, no bigger than carrot stumps and full-sized human hands. Their scrunchy faces bore an uncanny likeness to both Collins and De Valera. They waddled around the room, not forming words or even vowels, but bleating melodic noises that sounded like West Cork accents as heard through a locked door.

There were twelve in total, slightly less than Dev had hoped for. One to perform the duties of every member of the squad. That night, as Collins fed them all drink, he showed them the addresses and photographs of the members of the Cairo gang. They seemed to have a sense of deep understanding and determination about these instructions, and were quite clearly natural-born killers in every sense of the phrase. They swarmed around the room in geometric formations, and were quite clearly natural-born killers in every sense of the phrase. They swarmed around the room in geometric formations, and communicated positions and instructions to each other.

Only a few hours old, they were behaving like commandos, who were highly experienced in all areas of military and counter-insurgency tactics. Collins began to feel less heartbroken about de Valera's death, as he realised that it was steeped in purpose and meaning. He was sure that the Arsht children would complete their mission with brutal efficiency. Collins issued dispatches to every member of his squad which detailed the cancellation of the following day's planned assassinations of the Cairo gang. The squad were to remain in allocated safe houses with nobody,

not even their wives or families, to know of their whereabouts. The next morning at 6.30am the Arsht children were fitted out in the dog pelts that Dev had prepared, tailored and left in the attic of the Dáil. Colt M1903 hammerless pistols were placed in each of their hands and hidden under their pelts. What looked like a pack of wild terriers left the door of Dawson Street to let a river of blood flow through the cobbles of Dublin City on the morning of 21st November 1920. Michael paced around the empty boardroom and retrieved De Valera's flattened and rubber-like face that he had saved from the hungry mouths of the arse children. He took his old friend's remains to the back garden of the mansion house,

wrapped them in De Valera's Carmelite robes and said a short prayer to St Berthold before issuing an unmarked burial. As afternoon commenced, the news of the assassinations travelled quickly around the empire. They had shaken the Brits to their very core. The British were unable to fathom how the IRA had not only identified their crack team of Cairo gang members, but killed every one of them in their homes in the space of one morning. In an act of cowardly brutality, the British took their revenge out on civilians.

At 3.15pm Dublin and Tipperary were due to commence the All-Ireland Gaelic football final in Croke Park before an audience of 5,000 spectators. A convoy of armoured black and tans entered the pitch and murdered 14 civilians and injured 70. In the pubs of Dublin, whispers celebrated the brave men of Michael Collins' squad who had taken out the Cairo gang as glasses were raised. Men like Charlie Dalton, Sean Healy, James Conroy and Stephen Behan were toasted as heroes. Songs were sung for the Twelve Apostles. Collins later told the squad that the real assassins had been a team of American Fenians

sourced during De Valera's last US fundraising tour. Men well accustomed to the bloodshed of New York gang life. The squad were to keep this information private in exchange for handsome pensions and secure civil service jobs upon the establishment of the Irish Republic. The Arsht children returned to Collins that night. Their eyes blood-mad from the English lives they had taken. Collins, extremely wary that their existence would be too strange a burden for Ireland, and even the world to accept, made a swift decision. After they'd handed back their weaponry and drank celebratory rounds of mojitos, he personally shot each

and every one of them. He burned their little rotund bodies to ashes in the back of the mansion house, where no one would ever discover the dark cosmic secret that he and de Valera had shared, except for one man. Stephen Fagan was a tall and skinny character from the Liberties, a quiet and insignificant volunteer who bore an uncanny resemblance to Eamon de Valera. Collins approached Fagin due to his appearance and informed him that Dev had accidentally

shot himself with a pistol but that his death could not be revealed as it would be too damaging for IRA morale. Collins offered Fagin a deal. Collins would hide the death of the real Eamon de Valera while Fagin would attend O'Leary's pub on Abbey Street that night and inform all friends and family that he was leaving for Australia the next morning to pursue a vocation in haberdashery. He would then assume the identity, accent and mannerisms of Eamon de Valera

with which would come an everlasting power over Ireland. Fagin and Collins started off to a strained relationship as Fagin did not possess any of the welcoming traits of de Valera. Collins, in a state of mourning for his friend would often attempt to prepare Mai Tais and Capra Hinas for Fagin who would rudely decline as he was a staunch teetotaller and control freak. Fagin was of little use as a leader or president and took a puppet role, with Collins controlling almost entirely the orchestration of the ongoing war against the

British. They grew further apart, with Fagin becoming quite comfortable in the role of Eamon de Valera and the trappings of power that attached the role. He had, to all purposes, become Dev in his head too, often walking past the old streets of the Liberties where he had been born with no sense of familiarity or recollection of his childhood or family. He had repressed the identity of Stephen Fagin to his unconscious mind and completely forgotten that he was anyone other than Eamon de Valera,

born George de Valero to Catherine Call of Limerick in New Jersey, 1882. A phrase Fagan would replay in his mind perpetually. This was who he was now. However, this unconscious repression self-sublimated its energy into an irrational and bitter hatred for Michael Collins. Fagin was unaware that this loathing was because Collins was the only man who knew his true identity. It simply presented itself as an intense anger whenever Collins was present or even mentioned in conversation. Fagin began to plot and connive the demise of Collins.

conversation. Fagin began to plot and connive the demise of Collins. The weeks passed and in July of 1921, eight months after Fagin became de Valera, a truce was agreed between the Irish government and the forces of the British Crown. Collins knew that this transpired because of the assassination of the Cairo gang at the hands of his and Eamon de Valera's arse children. He pined for his friend, imagining his joyous reaction to the news of the war's end. But Fagan had other plans. In October 1921, British Prime Minister Lloyd George called for the negotiation of a treaty between Ireland and Britain.

Fagan, having listened to the members of Dáil Éireann, knew this treaty was a poisoned chalice because the British had recently partitioned the uppermost region of the country into Northern Ireland. A united, independent Ireland was not going to be negotiable. De Valera was invited to attend the treaty negotiation in London, but instead chose to send Michael Collins as his representative. Collins returned to Dublin, having agreed

to the establishment of the Irish Free State, an independent dominion under Britain, with the King at its head. Worse, Collins, as predicted by Fagin, had failed to secure the freedom of the north of the country, which would remain under full British control.

This caused uproar around Ireland. Collins was demonised by half his men of the country, which would remain under full British control. This caused uproar around Ireland. Collins was demonised by half his men in the IRA. Fagin, as devil era, took the opportunity to break with the treaty and a bloody civil war began, pitting brother against brother, Fagin against Collins. The civil conflict ravaged Ireland for several months. On the 22nd of August 1922, Michael Collins was visiting his home county of West Cork to inspect recently conquered territory.

He believed himself to be off-limits for assassination in his homeland. It would have been unthinkable, disrespectful, to bring harm to him in Cork, even for an anti-treaty enemy. He was still the great Michael Collins who brought the British to their knees De Valera quote unquote had found his moment having heard unconfirmed rumours

that men close to Collins were referring to him as Fagin the Changeling Michael Collins was shot in an ambush on the orders of Fagin that day and Ireland's heart dropped into its mouth. The sad and brutal death of Collins brought a swift end to the Civil War. Fagin did not care for either Free State or Republic and his secret had died with Michael Collins.

He was now free to spend the rest of his life as Éamon de Valera. He founded the Fianna Fáil political party and spent long hours poring over the personal diaries of the real Éamon de Valera. He founded the Fianna Fáil political party and spent long hours poring over the personal diaries of the real Eamon de Valera, which had been kept in a safe in the attic of the mansion house. These diaries contained musings on Dev's political leanings, his plans for a republic and his opinions on the Catholic faith in accordance with his time at the Carmelite Order. One such diary was dedicated solely to the very specific instructions

around pregnancy, birth and abortion. It outlined the miracle of conception as the personal cosmic intervention of Our Lady. It outlined explicitly that abortion was to be never carried out, even if the child of the mother was at risk, that the survival of the child was to be the carried out, even if the child of the mother was at risk, that the survival of the child was to be the only factor to consider.

What Fagin did not realise was that he was reading coded instructions for the birth of the immaculate Ars children. De Valera had prepared these instructions for Collins in the event that the Ars pregnancy had rendered him completely unable to speak.

De Valera, quote-unquote, went on to write the Constitution of the Irish Republic in 1937. End of part one. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th, when the Toronto Rock host the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm.

You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.