IN A grotesque act of collective annihilation, some 200 members of the bizarre "Leinster House" cult disappeared in a puff of smoke, or exhaust fumes, over the weekend. Unusual signs of activity had been noticed outside the luxury headquarters on Kildare Street on Thursday evening and when police broke in on Friday afternoon there was no sign of life.
"This was normal", explained a Garda spokesman on collective annihilation affairs, "but we were still pretty shook up. What we're looking at here is probably a macabre story of ritual self destruction by cult members, or "deputies" as they call themselves, but sure then again they might well be back after the Easter recess. It's hard to know."
What exactly happened is unclear. Police said the members appeared to have stocked up heavily on alcohol on Thursday evening "but of course so did everybody else, what with the off licences being closed next day, so we took no notice".
Details of activity within the strange cult are only now beginning to emerge. Apparently the members believed they came from another planet, and since they acted accordingly, everyone else believed it too. Avoiding the attentions of the public, the cult developed its bizarre theories of global control and interplanetary travel deep within the plush apartments of the lavishly appointed complex.
A Garda spokesman however played down the rumour that the members hoped to link up with a UFO trailing the Hale Bopp comet. "Don't be daft, man, they are not totally off the wall. More likely they are linking up with Aer Lingus flights to the Canaries. We're not actually sure it's a cult thing at all after all, members of most cults are non smoking, non drinking celibates.
People who occasionally met "deputies" spoke yesterday of their cleanliness and politeness but also of their strange meaningless conversations, weird theories and their certainty of always being right.
I asked the Garda spokesman about the views of the Cult Information Centre in London, which suggested that cult leadership was often quite mad and in this case had clearly decided through some sort of paranoid reaction to do something extreme and take the people with them and that it was all the fault of hypnotic cult leaders showing their lethal power when they direct their skills towards bending followers to their will.
"Ah, calm down" was his response.
He agreed that the effect on the young gave greater cause for concern. Many families had, he admitted, lost loved ones, indoctrinated by charismatic leaders who left young people totally incapable of independent thought. "The Leinster House recruiters are expert in the use of sense deprivation and love bombing. The young innocent person is bombarded with dreary information and doctrine until finally becoming disoriented. At that stage, professional help is needed to get out of these people's clutches."
MEANWHILE the Garda is following up new evidence that the recent £1 million sportswear haul by thieves from a warehouse in Walkinstown was engineered by a group of Irish designers determined to protect this country's image on the world fashion stage.
The robbers got away with large quantities, of the predominantly Orange coloured new Irish soccer strip.
Jimmy O, whose Tain Bo Cuailgne range of shirts sells all over Europe and Japan, expressed, quiet satisfaction at the success of the raid. "There are unscrupulous people who seemingly couldn't care less that orange has never been a fashionable colour, except during a brief and rather hideous phase in the early 70s. To associate it now with Ireland is a retrograde step which could cost the fashion industry, not to mention me personally, millions."
Was he admitting to a personal involvement in the raid?
"Of course not. I would die rather than touch one of those hideous pseudo silk garments.
And at a recommended retail price of £39.99 for the adult shirt, and £29.99 for the junior version, were they not also hideously overpriced?
"Oh, that's a different business. Very sophisticated commercial criteria apply in the fashion world - I wouldn't expect you to understand. I'm sure that despite the colour, the consumer is getting excellent value."
