The Castlehuddart Principality

As some of you may already have surmised, this is an election year and the posturing and manoeuvrings have already begun. Already one senses a certain weariness, if not the sound of outright snoring, on the part of the electorate who see little to excite them in the impending bout of oral and verbal fisticuffs. The Government parties are promising to maintain the status quo, despite the fact that they haven’t produced anything decent since “Down Down, Deeper and Down” in 1976 and the opposition parties are promising “radical change,” in the very political and humorous sense of the word “radical.”
In setting up the Castlehuddart Devolution Party – I am keen not to alienate the two major hubs of Dublin 15 – I believe that the only way to effect real and lasting change in the area is to vote BDP.
For too long, the good citizens of this green and pleasant suburb have been held to ransom by near-sighted planners, greedy developers and shopping trolleys with bockety wheels. We said we wanted extra places for our children in local schools and they gave us longer benches. We said we wanted a fast and reliable transport system and they pointed us towards the footwear in Lifestyle. We said we wanted proper health care for all and they gave us an Anadin. And the worst crime of all was doing away with Roches Stores (or so my wife maintains)
It is a general principal of life and business that the smaller an organisation or political entity, the more efficiently it runs. The kibbutz in Israel generally operates well and is probably closest to the ideas that Karl Marx had before he chose to make the foray into Hollywood with Groucho and Harpo. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was ultimately too unwieldy and declined and fell in much the same way that the Roman empire did 1500 years previously.
The sad fact of the matter is that no matter what prospective candidates say about prioritising this area after the election, they will have to contend with every other area in the country looking for their own area to be prioritised. And despite our relatively small population, our politicians have yet to come up with a way of pleasing all the people all of the time, though mass resignations might bring a smile to most people’s faces.
Here in the CDP (current membership of one, though I’m trying hard to get my wife and children to join through bribery) we (a royal “we” obviously) believe (and fully subscribe to the fact that) sentences (of all lengths) should contain as many brackets as is (humanly) possible. We also believe that only through total devolution from the island of Ireland (north and south) can the citizens of Blanchardstown, Castleknock and surrounding areas hope to achieve their full potential.
If we come to power – and in all honesty, a good old-fashioned coup d’etat seems more promising than an electoral victory – we would immediately close all borders with the rest of Ireland and insist that all non-residents must wear a funny hat if they wish to use our roads. This might not generate much income but if would lift the spirits of hard-pressed commuters travelling home from the foreign townships of Cabra and Glasnevin.
All citizens will of course require Castlehuddart passports and like Greenland we will secede from the EU, making our off-licences and pubs duty-free and thus generating a day-tripper tourist industry to avail of cheap drink. The first thing we will do when our status is ratified by the United Nations will be to apply to FIFA to host the World Cup in 2016, with matches to be played at Verona, Corduff, Parslickstown, Porterstown and possibly St. Brigid’s, if we can negotiate a fee with them. Obviously this will also mean Champions League action for Whitestown United or Castleknock Celtic or whoever wins the domestic league.
We will stand firm on law and order, as we believe both are very good things to have, particularly order. This will be funded by the money collected in the fountain in the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
All building of houses and estates will cease forthwith and in fact we will pull a few of the newer ones down again and plant grass and thistles. We have also conducted extensive surveys and believe that the optimum solution to Clonsilla Bridge is to re-route the canal around the far side of the railway station and widen the road. All cars over 1.4 litres will be debarred from displaying witty signs in the back windows and we will of course push for Roches Stores to be reintroduced into the area. (Some people may regard this as a cynical ploy to go for the women’s vote but frankly it is the men who are suffering through listening to their wives moaning about the store’s demise.)
We will build another 37 bridges across the M50 to help alleviate traffic congestion on the N3 and we will also push strongly for the Phoenix Park to be cobble-locked to get rid of the jams on its frankly inadequate roads. This will also generate a considerable saving for the Parks Department of our neighbouring country which they can then use to promote environmental awareness.
The soon-to-be-renamed National James Connolly Memorial Hospital will receive its long-awaited scanner, purchased through Government funding in Dixon’s with a free printer thrown in. The hospital waiting list will be dramatically reduced by the simple means of making more lists with fewer people on each.
Abbotstown will be rezoned as a luxury holiday resort, complete with blue flag beach, casino and lots of scantily-clad women strolling around eating choc-ices to entice in tourists from the mainland. It will also feature Joe Higgins World, a Disney-type theme park dedicated to the indefatigable campaigner. Excited children and adults will be strapped into black wheelie bins and hurtled around gigantic rollercoasters at absolutely no extra cost to the hard-pressed taxpayer.
As regards to the administration of the new principality, I have toyed with the idea of democracy but feel it probably wouldn’t work. Just as you don’t get schoolchildren to vote for their choice of principal, democracy entails people who know nothing about politics having a say in who runs the country. It also entails the extra needless expense of ballot boxes, voting slips and pencils.
Instead, I would be broadly in favour of establishing a benign dictatorship with myself naturally on the throne. I realise fully that this onerous task will require a great deal of sacrifice on my part but in the interests of the community I am prepared to put the common good before my own personal well-being. Besides I thought of it first.