What brand of a feckin' eejit are ye?

A couple of years ago, one Saturday afternoon, I was bored and decided to create a quiz on Facebook.

For years, I'd had the phrase "What brand of a feckin' eejit are ye?" rattling around in my head. I heard it from a Cavan girl I shared a house with in London half a lifetime ago. It was something her dad, or uncle used to say - and he pronounced 'eejit' as 'ee-get'. Very Cavan. I love the Cavan accent, having spent several years in boarding school, and much of my childhood on my grandparents' farm up there, so the phrase stayed with me.

In any case, I thought that if it were taken as an actual question, rather than a rhetorical insult, it could make for a funny quiz. After a few hours of effort, during which I managed to make myself laugh out loud many times - always a good sign when you're writing comedy - I had the thing done.

I put it up onto Facebook, obsessed over it for a few days, then forgot all about it. A few weeks later I remembered it and when I checked, it had over three thousand 'Likes.' Checking now, the figure is at 3,984. So it must have a made a few other people laugh too.

I decided, before it goes missing on Facebook, I'd preserve it here.

The questions and possible answers are first, followed by the possible results, and the picture associated with each:


What brand of a feckin' eejit are ye?

Find out what sort of a gobshite you'd be if you grew up in Ireland - or what class of a shitehawk you should be if you actually did!


1. How do you pronounce 'idiot'?

• Eeejish
• Ee-jut
• Eeee-jitt
• Langer!
• Eejit
• Eee-get

2. Do you support a British soccer team?

• Soccer? G'way to feck! If it doesnt involve swinging a big lump of a tree around like a homicidal corn-reaper, I'm not interested.
• I'm too busy organising marches and pogroms to bother with that sorta shite!
• I do in me arse!
• Feckin' girl's game! GAA all the way! Yahoo!
• I'm more into Rugby, actually, like.
• Yeah, and I regularly have heated arguments in the pub with supporters of other teams.

3. Where would you spend Christmas?

• In traffic trying to get home from shopping in Dublin.
• I dunno. The Seychelles this year, maybe.
• Behind the curtains, in fear for me life!
• How much would I have to spend?
• At home, like.
• In the local, if it were open.

4. What's a 'Wheel?'

• Something my Skyline has four of and my Evo X also has four of.
• Something my Ford has four of.
• Something my Honda Civic has four of.
• Something my Massey Ferguson has four of.
• A stupid gobshite.
• Something my SUV has four of.

5. What's a dump valve?

• I'm not sure; but I bet it was invented by someone from my home county.
• An utterly pointless addition to my Nissan Micra's engine.
• A yoke on the back of the jacks.
• A very useful addition to the twin-turbos on my Jap import.
• Jaysus, I dunno. Something they put on a beer tap?
• I'm not sure, but I think my 4x4 has one.

6. Do you like the English?

• It depends on whether there's an English person within earshot or not.
• I do in me hole! Hate the feckers - although that's only because I've been told I should hate them.
• They're not to be trusted.
• I couldn't care less. They're inferior to us in every way, anyway.
• Sure, I mean like, yeah - why not?
• Fluffy Saxon bastards! It pains my breast to think of Eire's fertile sloping mantle being trodden underfoot for 800 years.

7. What's the definition of 'class'?

• An important social distinction by which you measure yourself against your peers.
• Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
• Something you forego to go into town and hang around Grafton Street.
• I wouldn't have a clue.
• Cristiano Ronaldo.
• Anything that's feckin' brilliant!

8. What does "Quar'n" mean?

• It's a vegetarian meat-substitute.
• Jaysus, I haven't a clue. Is it something you spread on the land?
• No idea. Some bog-trotter code word for something?
• 'Very' - as in "You're quar'n tick!' (You are a person of low intelligence.)
• Something we say when we're copying the Wicklow accent.
• It's a feckin' stupid expression, the likes of which we'd never use around here.

9. What's a 'turn?'

• A bend in the road.
• Something you serve soup in.
• A stroll around your property.
• A bend in the beautiful river that flows through my county town.
• A nasty shock.
• A song by the band 'Travis.'

10. Cad is ainm duit?

• Wha? Feck off with yer Irish, ya spa!
• Leath-uair tar éis a deich.
• No - only red diesel.
• Sorry - I don't speak bog.
• What's that there, now?
• ... Ó Murchu is ainm dom!

And that was it. Ten questions scientifically designed to tell you which part of the country you were from - or should be from. These were the answers:

You're A Feckin' Wicklow Goatsucker

You're not entirely sure whether you're happy to be from the Pale or not, and you're as likely to be seen in Fitz's lounge givin' out yards about the feckin' Brits as you are to be found in Phil's, lookin' at one-ohs and engaging a couple of hapless English tourists in a rambling beer-fuelled diatribe about the sorry state of Liverpool's performance in the Premier League. In quieter moments, you have a strong feeling that you should be up in the hills wandering about in the fog in a pair of wellies, but, you know what - you just can't be arsed!

You're A Feckin' 'Cute' Cork Hoo'er

Let's get one thing straight now, ye feckin' Swamp Donkey: There's nothin' cute about Cork or the naturalised extra-terrestrials that inhabit it. You're not even useful enough to be called langers. Tommy Tiernan once said that hearing Corkonians talking is like listening to tinkers trying to speak French, and he was right - if the tinkers in question had been lobotomised and were gargling Murphy's at the same time. Why the hell yiz find yerselves so superior to the rest of the country, is beyond us. You seem to make an awful lot of noise about yerselves, so there must be something of value down there, but we'll never know what it is because we can't understand a feckin' word you're sayin'! And your women! For feck's sake, even a sniper wouldn't take one of them out. The best thing that could ever have happened to Cork would have been if the pilot of the Enola Gay had gotten lost over Hiroshima and dropped the jaysus A-bomb on Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills.

Yer From Wee Northern Ireland

They mooted another solution for Norn Iron long before Sunningdale and the Good Friday agreement, did you know that? The Irish and British governments were going to plant a series of tactical nukes along the border and separate your sorry asses from the rest of the island. You were to be towed by the entire British Navy up near to Rockall and left there to fight it out amongst yourselves. The only reason it didn't go ahead was that the Icelandic government threatened to send Bjork down to live in Killarney if we moved you any closer to Reykjavik than you already were. And feck that! But lookat; you're a shite province, let's face it - utterly useless. If there were a competition to find the shitest most useless province on the planet, you'd only manage to come second 'cause you're so useless and shite.

You're A Fockin' D4 Head

Oh by Jaysus, but you are some feckin' tool! Where did you get that unholy accent? Holy Mother o' Jaysus, is this what our ancestors fought and died for; so you could ponce about Donnybrook in yer BMW X5 - the tyres of which will never see a feckin' stitch of mud - stopping off in Kiely's to drink Heino whilst watching in horror as Munster dismantle Leinster AGAIN, then slipping in your own vomit on the floor of the disabled jacks in Eddie Rocket's? Is it? Yer a feckin' disgrace to your genetics and anaemic complexion. Why don't you feck off to London where you belong and leave the rest of us in peace, you planter wannabe knobjockey.

You're A Mean Feckin' Cavan Basthard.

C'mere you, hi, ye feckin' hoo'er. The next time your rusted cunt of a Jetta breaks down outside Ballinagh, just pay to get the whore fixed. Don't spend the next five days commuting back and forward between your odious hovel in Mullahoran and the site of the breakdown on your Massey Ferguson 35X at 25 mile-an-hour, with a clatty toolbox that dates from the Emergency rollin' around in the feckin' transport box, just to save money, you miserable eegit! You're that tight, if you ran out of sausages, you'd eat your own mickey before buying more. There's a strong smell of cowshite about you, Bucko - and saying 'Taxi' won't stop you gettin' a good Sixer the next time you let one of your clatty bog-farts in the Owen Roe, ye dirty whore. Saying 'class' all the time doesn't mean you feckin' have any!

You're A Feckin' Wexford Yellowbelly!

You're stuck in the middle of the three 'W' counties, and you think you're the best of them. Well, you're feckin' not. In hurling, maybe, but that's about it. You're normally stood at the end of the bar in the Wren or Tipsy McStaggers with a big bockety head on ye, whingin' like a bowsie about horse-racing or blow-ins from Poland or other local tripe like the 1798 rebellion. Well, do you know something; nobody from outside County Wexford knows where Vinegar Hill is and no-one gives a SHITE! Shut up to be fecked, ye borin' wheel, ye!

An extract from my forthcoming book 'Acts of God'

Chapter 4

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
    G.K. Chesterton, Ballad of the White Horse.

    P.J Rourke was walking home from the pub and making a right bollix of it. Home was only a five-minute stroll from Kavanagh’s bar but he’d already been at it for half an hour. The main street of Annacarran is far too wide to bounce off both sides of it as you stagger along, but P.J was having a damn good crack at it. He sang as he stumbled around in the moonlight, syncopating the erratic metre of his singing with ill-timed hiccoughs. He had already serenaded a post-box with eighteen verses of ‘The Fields of Athenry.’ It only has three verses but that was no hindrance to P.J.

    Encouraged that the post-box hadn’t walked away or hit him, he had put his arm around it and progressed on to ‘The Green Fields of France.’

    “… I see by yar gravestone ya war awnly nineteen …” he bawled tunelessly.

    A bedroom window slid open somewhere above him.

    “Shut up and go home you drunken bollocks; the children are petrified!”

    “… when ya joined da … ah fuck off! (hic!) … great fallen in nineteen-sixteen.”

    He gave the post-box a parting kiss and attempted to continue his meanderings. With some concern, he realised he was leaning against it at such an angle that he had neither the strength nor the coordination to stand up straight and walk away. Summoning a superhuman will, he planted his free hand on the side of the post-box and pushed himself off.

    As with most pursuits attempted under the influence, the results were mixed. As his body came up though the vertical, one half of his brain told the other half it was time to stop the manoeuvre. Predictably, by the time the message had sunk in, gravity had taken hold and he started to topple like a felled tree the other way. At that moment, the primal fear of falling kicked his arms and legs into action and he fell sideways, still on his feet, like a demented disco-dancer, two hundred metres down the pavement. By the time he got himself under control he had made it as far as Byrnes’. All this time ‘The Green Fields of France’ had been playing away in his brain and, as he got his breath, his mouth picked up where his brain left off:

    “… Did dey beat da drum slowly?…” he inquired.

    At this stage an insistent pressure in his bladder started to register on his inebriated brain.

    “… Did dey play da fife lowly?…” he wondered.

    Just as he was about to ask the ghost of Willy McBride if they had played the death march as they’d lowered him down, P.J tripped over Byrnes’ Geranium plant and went arse-over-tit onto the pavement.

    “Bastard!” he spat, as he struggled to his feet. He proceeded to curse the hapless plant, which was now lying on its side for the third time that day. He profaned the Byrnes, their poxy Geranium, all members of the Geraniaceae family and potted plants in general. He attempted to kick the poor thing, missed and fell over backwards again. As he lay there, his bladder gave his brain its second public warning.

    A wicked thought came into P.J’s mind and he picked himself up. Cackling like a moorhen with emphysema, he fumbled his flies open and proceeded to piss like a stallion on the unfortunate Geranium. This doubly-cathartic activity accomplished, he decided he’d better get home before Sharon locked the door.
Eventually he made it to his porch and was attempting to insert the key into a knot in the wood when the door flew open.

    “Where the hell have you been? The pubs have been closed for hours! Was that you roaring out there?”

    “Ah, get outta me way and let me in, woman.”

    Sharon moved aside and P.J fell into the house, landing face-first on the carpet. His muffled voice emanated from the floor:

    “Either I’ve fallen over again or the wind has picked up something fierce!”

    “You’re drunk again. What on earth kept you?”

    He shambled to his feet and unleashed a grin at her that Jack Nicholson would have been proud of.

    “I think I had one too many. Every time I took one step forward, I staggered two steps back. I’d never have made it home only for I turned around to go back to the pub.”

    “Don’t try and sweet talk me, P.J. You know I’ve no sense of humour as far as your drinking’s concerned.”

    The smile drained from his face.

    “You’ve no bleedin’ sense of humour as far as anything’s concerned, you lime-faced oul’ wagon. It’s a good job one of us has or we’d never have gotten married.”

    Sharon slammed the door in reply and started up the stairs. P.J, considerably sobered by the implications of his own last statement, stomped down the hallway and into the kitchen.

    “D’you want a cup of tea?” he called.

    “No, I do not! I’m brushing my teeth for bed.”

    “I’ll be up in a minute.”

    “You will in your eye! You can sleep on the sofa. I’m not having you snoring and breathing alcohol fumes all over me all night.”

    “But the fuckin’ dog sleeps in there.”

    “That’s very thoughtful of you, but he doesn’t mind you snoring.”

    “Jaysus; thanks a lot. Sleepin’ with the fuckin’ dog! Jaysus!”

    “Well you shouldn’t come home so scuttered, should you? Who were you drinking with? That eejit Joe O’Brien, I suppose.”

    “Yeah, him and a few others. Do you know what he told me?”

    “Should I be interested?”

    “Mary O’Toole’s had another vision.”

    Sharon hurtled into the kitchen like a vulture. Her shadow had a hard time keeping up with her.

    “Really? What sort of vision?” she asked, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.

    “She knows where Fidelma Byrne’s St Anthony is.”

    Sharon deflated. Her eyebrows trudged dejectedly back down her forehead. Old news, she thought.

    “She said it was dropped in the street and handed in at the Garda barracks.”

    This caught Sharon well and truly on the hop.

    “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

    “That’s what Joe told me.”

    “But …” she said.

    “But what?”

    “Nothing.”

    Sharon wandered out of the kitchen and upstairs in a state of utter bewilderment.

    What’s the old biddy up to? She knows damn well it was in the flowerpot or she wouldn’t have sent that other eejit looking for it. So why’s he saying it was handed in to the Guards? Think Sharon, think. She knows everyone will find out it’s not there so why would she say it? Aha! She wants everyone to think she’s a fake, that’s why. She wants to keep her abilities to herself. Well that’s fine by me. Tomorrow I’ll lead the charge to the Garda station and make sure everyone knows the medal’s not there. She’ll think her little scheme has worked. She’ll think even I’ve been thrown off the scent. Oh, this gets better by the minute. I’ll be the only person that knows she is psychic and her guard will be down. Oh Mary, you’re going to make me a fortune and you don’t even know it.

    Sharon got changed and went to bed with intrigue and plots coursing around her brain like endorphins. Downstairs in the living room, P.J was snoring like a foghorn. After a while, Tiny the “Fuckin’ Dog” abandoned the living room in disgust. He scampered upstairs, clattered across the wooden floor on small terrier claws and jumped up onto P.J’s side of the bed.
Presently he too was asleep. As he dreamt his little legs kicked. He’s chasing rabbits again, thought a drowsy Sharon. But Tiny wasn’t chasing rabbits. He was having nightmares about his previous life as a Black-and-Tan.