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“There was Slugger O’Toole, who was….”

on 1 October 2006 , 12:05 pm 18 | 72 views

Over to you David…

,

  • Miss Fitz

    Must have missed the point of this one?

  • Mick Fealty

    I did too, to begin with… hint: it’s in the lyrics…

  • bertie

    Shouldn’t you give us another eye witness accout of the voyage?

  • greeneggsandham

    Drunk as a rule, and a man from west Meath called Malone! Do I win a prize??

  • On the Fourth of July, 1806
    We set sail…

    just before the United Kingdom general election, 1806

  • Greenflag

    Good oul Ronnie lookin well at least in 1987 đŸ™‚
    But that lad with the pointy teeth and ears like the wide open doors of a taxi – His mother should have been slapped when that boyo was whelped đŸ™‚
    for those who can’t bear to watch McGowan shout /sing heres the final lyrics .

    There was Slugger O’Toole who was drunk as rule
    And fightin Bill Tracey from Dover
    And yer man Mick McCann
    From the Banks of the Bann
    Was the skipper of the Irish Rover

  • heck

    North American’s love to make fun of how bad british teeth are. (Austin Powers!) From this Irish teeth seem to be as bad -or worse.

    After november can I suggest an all ireland dental standards body to regulate dentists and improve the standards of irish teeth –north and south.

  • TAFKABO

    What use are perfect teeth is the smile is vacuous and empty?
    I’ll take the brilliant mind and bad teeth of Shane Macgowan over the picture perfect stupidity of a Yank, any day.

  • Greenflag

    ‘North American’s love to make fun of how bad british teeth are. (Austin Powers!) .

    The converse is also true . Asked to fill in a form by the receptionist at an American dentist the Irishman filled in all the usual questions – name -social security number – medical history etc etc -number of hairs on head -colour of underpants -passport number -driving license number , marital status .

    After half an hour of filling in the bureaucratic nightmare he came to the question .

    ‘Are you happy with your smile’

    A loud guffaw of derisory laughter rang across the dentists waiting room . The Irishman went over to the receptionist’s desk and asked in a slightly raised tone ‘What’s the meaning of this ‘are you happy with your smile crap ‘?

    Why would expect you anybody to be smiling when

    a) visiting the dentist and b) having to spend 30 minutes filling in several pages of personal information so that American Insurance companies can continue fleece the american public while getting said public to fill in their paperwork for them .

  • heck

    touchy touchy Tafkabo!!

    actually mike myers who created the character of Austin Powers is canadian (of british parents) and he makes as much fun of the low standards of British dentistry as anyone.

    if you like american making dentist jokes the Jay Leno comment that finding weapons of mass distruction in Iraq was proving as difficult as finding a good dentist in Britain springs to mind.

    After the November deadline passes an all Ireland body to raise the standards of dentistry-north and south could be first out the gate.

    groovy baby

  • Surely that was where the name for this site came from in the first place, in which case I fail to see how people involved in this site took a while to catch on to what DV was talking about…

  • A slight adjustment of the lyrics may be appropriate:

    “And yer man Mick Fealty
    wittier than Pat Kielty
    Was the skipper of Slugger O’Toole”

  • Hurler on the Pot

    Surely that was where the name for this site came from in the first place, in which case I fail to see how people involved in this site took a while to catch on to what DV was talking about…

    Posted by El Matador on Oct 01, 2006 @ 10:05 PM

    That was always my assumption. In what other narrative does Slugger O’Toole exist?

  • heck

    I listened to this again. If David Vance likes this then he really is an Irishman.

    Come on David admit the truth you really are Irish. This beats Elgar any time.

  • Patty

    I knew there was a reason I clicked over to your site – that youtube was great! no idea why, I’m in LA – might as well be from Mars – but it was great.

  • pith

    I have sagely informed many a man that the name Slugger O’Toole comes from the song. I hope that is indeed the case as I hold no other knowledge in my head.

    Perhaps David Vance’s liking for it is related to the high-ranking postion among the crew of yer man Mick McCann.

  • esmereldavillalobos

    Always thought it was from the song as well – I would like to be enlightened if this is not the case.

  • susan

    I was puzzled last night how Mick could name a successful blog after a lyric he was (apparently) blissfully unaware of, and I found the explanation on Wikipedia. Figured Mick would fill everyone in, but as he seems to be otherwise engaged, here’s the Wikipedia answer. Apparently, Mick named the blog after an imaginary Loyalist sockpuppet named O’Toole (hello?) invented by a New Yorker.

    But of course.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugger_O'Toole

    “It began life as Letter to Slugger O’Toole, focused primarily on news and comment about Northern Ireland. From the beginning it has drawn its readership from a wide spectrum of opinion both inside and outside Northern Ireland.

    Originally, it was a reference to a sockpuppet character invented by Tim Murphy of New York, on an old CNN community called Peace in Northern Ireland. Tim’s “character” was invariably drunk on Bushmills and usually espoused strong loyalist politics, which often caught the unwary or recently arrived off guard. And he never listened to reasoned argument.

    The idea of the Letter was to try to explain the complexities of Northern Ireland, slowly, regularly and in short bite size pieces over a long, long period of time. Just like trying to explain something complex to a drunk man. The name is originally from the traditional Irish song “The Irish Rover”, best known as a collaboration between The Pogues and The Dubliners. The relevant line is: There was Slugger O’Toole who was drunk as a rule. However the Letter part was dropped when the blog moved from its old blogspot venue and radically re-designed and built on a different blog platform.[1] It has since been known as Slugger O’Toole, and in comments zone at least retaining some of the intractable qualities of Tim’s old sockpuppet drunk.”