MacCool

Why I demand the retention of the name ‘the Royal Ulster Constabulary’

A ROSE by any other name would smell as sweet. So the great Irish bard Liam Pearshaped has written. Although his writings were stolen from us by the English invader many years ago and translated from the Gaelic into indecipherable gibberish, those of us in the know continue to quote his work and speak his name with reverence.

A wise old man he was. He could bring men back from the dead. Witches brewing pots of herbs and casting spells was a speciality of his and a literary doddle in the greater scheme of things. At the tip of his pen life could be turned inside out and upside down. All seemed possible. Magic, princes, kings and goblins sprang to life and yet, great as he was, he now has rivals.

Over the past few years we have seen the Ulster Defence Regiment become the Royal Irish Regiment, Long Kesh become the Maze, David Trimble become a moderate, Gerry Adams become a member of the British parliament, Martin McGuinness become a British

Minister for Education, the Patten Report on policing become defunct, Stormont Castle become Comedy Central, Articles Two and Three become Four and Five while remaining Two and Three, while the new Six and Seven are really the old Eight and Nine.

John Taylor has acquired a sense of humour. Democratic Left has become Proinnsias de Rossa, while Proinnsias de Rossa has gone to Europe to lead a boy-scout movement. RTÉ television has become TG4 and three and two and one while RTÉ Radio has become FM 2 and it has been established that Charlie Haughey, while almost as immoral as his fellow politicians may not be immoral.

The banks have given away money, the taxman has refused it, an invasion by non-nationals has been discovered, X-files stars have been called in to track them down, an alien has been discovered in Co Sligo, while at a recent Ard-Fheis Gerry Adams leads his party in a search for a Republican among the crowd.

Eventually some George Bush supporters who had been invited as visitors were asked to leave the hall; they moaned about how Democrats were burning small holes in ballot papers with very large cigars supplied by Bill Clinton via a Ms Lewinsky. Dublin Airport saw its first row of taxis since the creation of the statelet, Free State forces defected from the UN to the Thousand Year Reich via a circuitous route. The Free State army joined the French Foreign Legion, Britain joined the French Foreign Legion, so did many other countries. The French Foreign Legion joined the new European Army.

THE Fourth Reich said they were well contented. Proinnsias de Rossa’s boy scouts all grew up but he keeps maintaining, “I was never a member of the IRA”. Everyone agrees he could never have been an IRA man. Ian Paisley got quiet, at least by his standards. John Hume announced his retirement, explaining that he had secured his aims in politics and could leave the northern State in safe hands. British death squad leader John White failed to win the lottery but produced the first million pound work of art in leather. “It’s just cowhide, honest to the lordie lord, there is no truth in that old rumour that I made lampshades out of my innocent nationalist victims,” he announced jovially to his many fans in the media.

Derry became Derry/Londonderry, the Union Jack instead of being flown on the Twelfth of July now hangs seventeen days a year, in a gesture of goodwill loyalists agreed not to hang a nationalist every day of the year. However, the month of July and anywhere near the Garvaghy Road were exceptions, they insisted, and the RUC remains the RUC.

Strange as it may seem, it’s good to know some things never change. For, while the Bard said ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ it is the Royal Ulster Constabulary which reminds us of the truth of F Scott Fitzgerald’s words ‘. . . How grotesque a thing a rose is . . .’

No matter what this British force is called, Liam Pearshaped in his wisdom would have realised there will always be a barrel of rotten apples – which is why Fr Denis Faul called on young nationalists to join them.

‘This is the way it is,’ the cute priest was heard to confide to the Pope during a recently intercepted phone-call, ‘the way it is, Your Eminence, is that in my view some types of people, well, like some people, if they don’t have an outlet like the RUC to join, then sure they might end up joining the priesthood . . . and you know what that led to in the past . . .’

‘Isa thata goods things for aah society?’

‘For Christ’s sake! Are you off your f . . . head? Who gives a f . . . . about society? My loyalty is to the institutions of the Holy Catholic Roman faith. I sometimes wonder if you have been living among those Italians too long . . . would you try to get back to grips with your Polish roots . . . Next thing you’ll be talking about human rights and things like that . . . and you know what that led to in the past . . . Me mammy was right, “never trust a f . . . soccer player” she told me and she was right . . .”
- Mac Cool