Following the revelations that John Major, the blandest prime minister in British history, had a torrid affair with Edwina Currie, whose sexual appetites frequently imperil the San Andreas Fault, Kevin Myers is proud to announce that we now going to reveal some of the sexual secrets of Irish life.
Admittedly, Maude Gonne's gallant attempt on Patrick Pearse's virtue got nowhere. In her lustful frenzy, she stripped herself naked and passionately told him what men did to women, indeed assuring him that his English father had done this to his Irish mother, at least twice. Pearse uttered a disbelieving little bleat of Mammy! and swooned dead away.
The next day he popped into the GPO with a letter for his poor mammy, and seeing an English soldier queuing at the counter for a stamp. . .Well, the rest is history.
At around the same time, Countess Markievicz had spotted a sturdy young gardener tidying the leaves in St Stephen's Green. She conceived a grand passion for this sterling rake with his stirring rake, and soon was vigorously having her way with them both when they were discovered by a DMP man. She was so indignant at being interrupted - and so close to fruition as well - that she shot the poor policeman, and, hallooing like hounds, continued to a successful conclusion of her business. The r. is h.
Walks by the Boyne
Michael Collins is widely regarded as being something of a ladies' man, but that is only part of the truth. The great love of his life was in fact Oliver Plunkett's head, which he used to visit in Drogheda Cathedral. He would take the head for long walks along the Boyne. Conversation was necessarily of the desultory variety, but profound relationships such as theirs usually rise above mere words. Collins always promised that he would make a little home for the pair of them when the war with the British were over: had Oliver anywhere in mind? "Somewhere in west Cork," croaked the bonce.
"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Collins. "I'll go scouting around the Bandon area once I've got the Brits to leave." The r. is h.
It's not as widely known as it should be that in his youth Bishop John Charles McQuaid conducted a passionate, if intermittent, affair with the chairman of the Army Comrades Association. Originally, he was much taken by the blue shirt, comparing it rather favourably with his drab clerical attire, but soon he grew to love the leader's virile vigour. The two of them would stroll down Monaghan boreens, frequently consummating their lust with manly cries of joy.
On one occasion, their passionate tryst was interrupted by an icy downpour on the blue-shirtless back of the ACA generalissimo. "Good God," he cried - for he was a condition similar to that of the Countess in the Green -- "what the devil's that?" "Hail, O'Duffy," whispered the young cleric into the grass.
"Hmmm. That sounds rather good," murmured the Blueshirt hero, biting his companion's neck. "Ggggghhkkkkxptlaargh," cried the priest. The r. is h.
Passionate liaison
Not everything enters "history". It's widely accepted that de Valera was a man of great personal austerity: less well known is his passionate liaison with the then-unknown Shirley Bassey when she was touring Ireland in the 1950s. He spotted her in a dance hall in Cootehill, where he had gone incognito wearing dark glasses, a teddy-boy suit and winkle-pickers, looking for a bit of the legendary Cavan action.
Shocked to discover that not merely did Welsh coalmines employ women, but that they didn't even give them a proper shower afterwards, he went round to the Cardiff chanteuse's dressing room to sympathise. She suggested that he remove her coal-dust in a bath, and so he tried. As a lightener of hues, he was unsuccessful; but his other skills were such that Shirley soon was roaring on the top of her very considerable voice that he must be MISTAH GOLDFINGAAAAAAH.
Terrified of discovery, Dev fled, never returning to Cavan, instead retiring from the public eye to a quiet shriek-free life in the Park. Yet the sad figure of Shirley Bassey can sometimes be seen, peering forlornly through the darkened windows of a stretch-limo as it cruises through Cootehill.
Cootehill, of course, brings us to Sean MacBride, a trans-sexual whose real name was Beryl Sidebottom from Scunthorpe in England. She did not discover her taste for womenfolk until a passionate fling with Clementine Churchill, Winston's wife, convinced her of true orientation.
Sex-change operation
Dr Noel Browne performed her sex-change operation as part of his oft-misunderstood Mother Rand Child Scheme, which was intended to arrange gender-reassignment operations to be paid for in South African currency. Thus as a he, Sean MacBride became chief of staff of the IRA and serial womaniser, with even Sinéad de Valera succumbing one night when Eamon was - or so he said - attending a vital election rally in Cavan.
Southerners have no monopoly over susceptibility of the heart. The Rev Ian Paisley once fell passionately in love with the Moving Statue of Ballinspittle. He soon moved it into his house in Belfast, though Eileen found the plaster figure disagreeably cold in bed, and its nocturnal restlessness drove her mad. Every time she drifted off to sleep, the statue would start shaking the bed; and there'd be no stopping Big Ian then, as he and the statue would slake their mutual lusts through the night.
Which brings me to Dana, Michael Barrymore and Madonna. . .Oops, sorry, out of space. What a shame.