I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty alarmed at what .

I’m reading in the papers regarding the mid-March
riots. | mean, after that comic in that Danish newspa-
per, I’m seriously concerned. Burned embassies, burned
effigies, burned this and burned that. When will it stop?

“Never,” said. Patty O’Lachlan, spokesman for the
Irish Guinness Lover’s Association (IGLA). “We'll
neigh be stoppin’ drinkin’ the Guinness and burnin’ the
buildings; not ’till them damn Danes apologize for them
racist cartoons.”

O’Lachlan is referring, of course, to the now-infa-
mous cartoons depicting a leprechaun with an image of
a Guinness beer superimposed onto its box-top hat.

“The cartoon was a direct affront to Irish people
worldwide,” said Irish Canadian Simon Hatton. “It’s
clear that if the Guinness Company actually decided to
put Guinness beer in the hat of a leprechaun, Irish
people everywhere would be deprived of the ‘real black
gold’.”

Hatton went on to explain that “only those people
with the strange gift” can see leprechauns, and even
they seldom see more than one in a lifetime.

“Think about it,’ Hatton continued. “Tf all the
Guinness were in all the hats of all the leprechauns,
what would the rest of us do? Drink Molson Canadian?
I don’t think so, Buddy.” Hatton then mumbled inco-
herently, whooped loudly, and lit the curtains of our
hotel room on fire with a cry of, “Gimme a Guinness!”

And peoples of Irish descent aren’t the only ones
outraged by the cartoons.

“We loves our Guinness too der bai,” said one
Newfoundlander who wished to remain anonymous.
“Dem cartoons? Well I don’t know ’bout dem cartoons,
but if da lep-ree-cannes are makin’ off wit da Guinness,
der’s bound da be a big ole mess a trabull.” The Newfie
then proceeded to finish his 18th beer, whooped with
drunken vigour, and torched “his mammy’s trailer”
before dancing a festive little jig.

Similar incidents have been seen throughout the
Guinness-drinking world, raising alarms with officials
around the globe.

“Tt’s just a freaking cartoon,” quoted Lance
McMurtry, Editor-in-Chief of The Looking Glass, a
Vancouver weekly that choose to re-run the question-
able cartoons in its Match 17, 2006 issue. “For Christ’s
sake,’ McMurtry continued, “what the hell is their
freaking disconnect? Are they drunk or something?”

Drunk indeed. The timing of the comic’s re-printing
is being blamed by many for the arson that took place
late in the early hours of last March 18. The Looking
Glass offices were torch-bombed by an angry mob of
Irish Canadians. Eyewitnesses described the perpetra-
tors as “dressed in green and stumbling.”

 

 

“What did they expect?” said O’Lachlan. “Those
comics suggest that there’ll be no more Guinness. And
those filthy buggers re-printed them on the blessed St.
Patrick’s Day!”

The events of the past few weeks have shown that
Guinness isn’t “like a religion” for the Irish; it is
religion.

“What’ll be next?” asked O’Lachlan. “The
Kilkenny? The Glenfiddich? The bloody Tullimore
Dew? If them leprechauns think they’re going to make
off with the Tullimore Dew, there’s going to be trou-
ble.”

O’Lachlan then reached into his hat, pulled out a
fresh-poured pint of Guinness, winked, and disap-
peared.

Welcome to the Other Press April Fool’s edition,
where reality is an illusion, and illusion is reality.

—Colin Miley, Managing Editor