Dáil Sketch/ Frank McNally: Offaly has come up in the world since a poet famously implored one of its features to devour two of the others.
"Great bog of Allen, swallow down/That odious heap called Phillipstown,
"And if thy maw can swallow more/ please take - and welcome - Tullamore."
The county's change in fortunes was evident during questions to the Minister for Finance yesterday when two of Offaly's modern-day attractions - Brian Cowen and Tom Parlon - were able to boast of its popularity under the decentralisation scheme.
Phillipstown (now called Daingean) may not be a major beneficiary of the plan. But Offaly as a county (now "Parlon Country") certainly is. So when Fine Gael's Paul McGrath claimed that only one in six "early movers" wanted to go where their departments were going under the scheme, Mr Cowen said the experience of his own town (still called Tullamore) suggested otherwise. Ninety of the projected 131 jobs there were already accounted for, he said proudly.
While two Offaly men dominated finance questions, the Dáil's two known socialists were cementing their alliance earlier when the subject of housing estate management companies came up on Leaders' Questions.
It was raised by Joe Higgins who, waving a typical 18-page contract, condemned the "scam" whereby builders were passing estate management charges on to home owners. Did the Taoiseach oppose this "sneaky, underhand" development, Mr Higgins wanted to know? And would he "remove this monkey" off people's backs?
Opposition questions are often a cue for the Taoiseach to recite litanies of the Government's achievements. So theories about the socialist conspiracy were only encouraged when Mr Ahern replied that the answers to Mr Higgins's questions were "yes" and "yes", and promptly sat down.
The Taoiseach also had to field a query from Pat Rabbitte about Labour's policy document on childcare. With a line in sarcasm of which his questioner would be proud, Mr Ahern conceded that he was very familiar with the Labour document because it was the same - "almost word perfect" - as the one by the National Economic and Social Council.
Back at finance question-time, Brian Cowen had the swagger of a man who has a Bog of Allen-sized surplus to distribute in the budget. He resorted to the parliamentary equivalent of inviting Labour to step outside to discuss fairness in the tax system.
"If you want to compare it to when Ruairí Quinn was minister I can win the argument hands down," he assured Joan Burton.
It was pure mule, as they say in Offaly.