So from what I can understand, as far as the Irish are concerned, there is this world, and then there is an otherworld, which is at the same time a one word adjective and possibly a literal description. I don’t know, I haven’t been there. I imagine it probably involves getting a ferry, as it is over the sea, and sadly that is something I have absolutely no interest in doing.
Anyhow, so, in this otherworld, is a place called Tír na nÓg, and this place is great. It’s an island paradise of eternal youth. They’ve got poetry, music, dancing, feasts - Tír na nÓg boasts the highest quality of life in Europe north of Vienna. And if that’s not your thing, and you’re more of a say, I don’t know, SEX TOURIST, it’s also full of brawny warriors and dusky maidens. Everyone’s happy.
In this beautiful otherworld, where the skies are quite literally brighter, lived a woman called Niamh. And surprise surprise, she was a hot woman, because as I said, only dusky maidens and brawny warriors live in Tír na nÓg. As she was not the latter, she must have been the former. I’m not sure what happens to you if you’re born in Tír na nÓg and you don’t fit into their (what seems like) rigid beauty standards. I’d imagine they just send you on a boat across the channel. I also don’t know where that would take you. Scotland? Wales? The north? Who knows.
In any case, Niamh fell in love with a normal human man, whose name was Oisín. She was in the normal world searching for tayto crisps, and so was he, and their hands touched, and it was love at first sight. A real coup de foudre. A real cup of taytoos.
‘Hey,’ said Miamh. ‘Do you like to party?’
‘Hey,’ said Oisín. ‘I LOVE to party.’
So they went off to Tír na nÓg on a magical horse that could walk on water. This horse was sort of turquoise, and had purple hair, and looked exactly like the kind of horse that a particularly girly girl would draw. and full disclaimer, I adapted this joke from oneI heard on top gear by Jonathan Ross about how Richard Hammond looks particularly like a scarecrow that a particularly girly girl would make. I thought it was an excellent joke, and I’m looking for any opportunity to use it. It doesn’t matter that maybe this magical horse was not the best vessel for this joke. It’s a magical horse. There aren’t that many jokes you can make about magical horses.
Anyway so they arrived Tír na nÓg where they partied for three hundred years. They also had like three kids and were very happy. However around 300 years down the line, Oisín wanted to go home.
“Okay, take the magic horse and come back soon,’ said Miamh. And as he was going out of the door she added ‘make sure you don’t touch the ground or you will immediately age and shrivel up and die!”
Oisín took note of this. However, when he crossed the sea on the Richard Hammond horse he was shook to find out that 300 years had actually passed, and he didn’t recognise anything or have any fucking idea about what was going on. In shock, he fell off of his horse, and then he died, just as Niamh had said.
And she was very sad. The end.
