Smokie and Mirrors and Other Urban Myths
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Munster Rugby have what they call ‘the bitterness bank’ where they deposit slights, real or imagined, to be resurrected and reused on a later date. But that isn’t a patch on this Smokie Larkin character, if such as he exists at all. His tale is a metaphor for the nation as we stands at this time. Raging, raging against the dying of the light.
Affronted he was at Thierry Henry’s froggy cheatin’ handball that knocked Ireland out of the soccer World Cup, so much so that he was apprehended by disbelieving staff as he was urinating on the French loaves section of Maher’s ValueStore supermarket, Killareagh, in an ‘I piss all over your country’ one man protest. You’ve heard of the ballot box in one hand and the armalite in the other as a declaration of Irishness. This time it was a baguette in one hand and his coq sportif in the other. All of this in Killareagh, if such a place exists.
The story goes that staff found the 46-year-old triumphantly having a slash on the Cuisine de France section of the bread shelves in Maher’s, shouting “this will teach ye, ye cheating French bastards.” Not surprisingly he was arrested and led away by the gardai in the process pissing off local housewives who looking after a bit of fresh crusty, as they do.
The Court apparently heard from Gardai Anthony Flanagan who was called to the store at 11.15 on the morning of November 25.
“When I reached the shop, I was informed that Mr Larkin was causing a disturbance in the bread section and when I got there, he was urinating on the French bread section and stamping on a loaf. I later ascertained that the loaves were brioches, a sort of French bread.
“When he saw me, he tried to run away but I apprehended him and grabbed him by the arm. He said ‘that’s for Thierry Henry, guard. If you have any pride in your country, you’ll let me go.”
Smokie’s lawyer pleaded the case for the patriot, who addressed the court a la Robert Emmet. He advised that he had no axe to grind with the employees in the shop but that they had got caught up in ‘friendly fire’. He added that he wanted to make a grand gesture gesture to show that the Irish were not going to take the controversial incident lying down.
“The French loaf is the symbol of France’ he said “and so by doing what I did, I was standing up for Irish pride.”
His lawyer pleaded that Smokie, who was a wearing a “I shot Thierry Henry” tee shirt when he was apprehended isn’t a bad fella after all: “It is when he mixes alcohol with his passion for sport that he gets himself into situations like this,” she said.
Accordingly we are told that Judge Fegrus O’Halloran took a dim view of his activity, stating that what Mr Larkin had done was despicable and a threat to public hygiene. “You did this without any thought to the consquences for the unfortunate shoppers who had to buy that bread” he admonised.
“We cannot have louts like yourself with half-baked ideas about national pride carrying out acts like this,” he said, before sentencing Larkin to six months in jail, suspended on condition he does not breach the peace for one year, fining €500 and ordering him to pay €1,000 to Michael Maher for the clean up of the bread shelf areas.
So did it happen or didn’t it? When you read this here or elsewhere did you heart rise up in pride, tears welling at this one man 1798. Or did you think that this is the sort of pathetic and ridiculous depths we’ve plumbed when we think an overpaid arrogant and over exposed f***er might cause a real or imaginary hero of Ireland to hose down the Cuisine de France.
Or is it all entirely made up, a salutory tale where the symbols of France are a piece of damp crusty bread that’s made in Ireland and a footballer who gets paid to score goals however best he can.
And the symbol of Ireland c2010 is a plastered plasterer who’s most effective form of protest is when he’s on the piss.
