newswestport2002

The Story I'm about to tell you is true, except for the fact that it is false! But isn't that the best kind of entertainment?.......NO!

For most of us the trip to Westport is the highlight of the Order of Malta social calendar, this year proved to be no exception with a thoroughably enjoyable weekend for all. The trip actually began on the Wednesday before we were to leave for Mayo with a trip to Musgraves to take advantage of a trade card we managed to get our hands on, discount alcohol was on the menu and everyone wanted to get in on the action. Unfortunately most people were still in work or struggling to get out to Robinhood Industrial estate for six, so telephone orders were taken wothout deposits. We were informed by Mammy(Aife) that Musgraves doesn't close until eight on a Wednesday, so six was the agreed meeting time. What she forgot to mention was that she had gotten it wrong and it actually closed at six.

So Caolan, Paddy and Dave Rucko all arrived at six to be informed by the girls that they weren't being let in, it was time to use some of the Caolan charm or this weekend would be a disaster before it even started. So bribing the guy at the door went well and he let us in, (twenty euro well spent if you ask me!). A quick dash to the alcohol section, bypassing the usual trip to the sweet section, and we were presented with our first question, beer, spirits or alcopops? we all decided that with the amount of drinking we'd be doing and the lack of a fridge to cool our beverages that our best option was to minimise the hangovers, so we went for the alcopops. Now its for the second question, Blue WKD or Smirnoff Ice? the blue wkd turned out to have more contents, so my student brain kicked in. Seven crates of blue WKD it was! we made a dash to the counter to pay(with a quick run around the sweet section bofore we made it there), it was at the counter that the third question of our trip hit us,
'Do yez have any ID'? .......
'Erm, well, eh........NO! It's for the shop, really' Says me
'So your buying seven crates of WKD, a tub of gummy bears and a box of Cola Lollies for a delicatessen' Says he
'Yep' says me
'What kinda Delicatessen sells WKD, gummy bears and Cola Lollies' Says he
'The best damn Deli in the world' He didn't believe me! Time for more of my Caolan charm, so I bribed the guy at the counter aswell. We finally made it to the car park to be greeted with cheers and clapping, we had made it!

and thats the story of our trip to Musgraves.

Oh yeah, The Westport thing. There was three cars travelling to Westport, Caolans, Paddy's and Aife's. The plan was to have left Dublin by 2.30 at the latest. We were leaving late because Caolan was in work and Paddy had to attend a court appearance for driving offences (seriously). All the cars with the exception of Caolan's left before three, Caolan's car didn't leave until half four. Once on the road the request for some music was made by Sarah Curry in the back, it was turned down because the speakers in my Starlet had blown on the way back form Westport last year and I haven't had time to get them fixed, I'm a student & I'm always busy! How and ever we were on our way, Paudge was the navigator, Claire and Sarah were there to add something female to quite a masculine car (a Scarlet 1992 Toyota Starlet is very Masculine!). Paudge being the Navigator managed to first of all send us down the Galway Road(N6) instead of the Longford/Mayo road(N4/N5), that was ok, I know the way, it's only a twenty Kilometre detour, we will be back on track in no time. Paudge was working his way through my map plotting the way to send me as far away from Westport as possible, he still claims that the map was at fault!

However, after a quick trip to Knock we got to Westport at ten to be told that Paddy had picked up a parking fine three hours after making a court appearance for driving offences! We immediately started to consume some of the 7 crates and large bottle of Vodka we had brought. Come half eleven we made our way to the nightclub where a fun time was enjoyed by all. After we all made our way back to the Hostel where there was a strict 'NO DRINKING' policy in place, so a few of us grabbed a crate and made our way to the car park. We continued drinking until a Garda came around the corner and informed us that it was 'illegal to drink in a public thoroughfare' You can imagine our shock and disbelief, we immediately apologised to the gardai, we couldn't believe we had broken the law in such a manner. We then made our way around the back of the local swimming pool and continued drinking there!

However we eventually got to bed and rested our heads, the next morning we all woke up with hangovers like nothing we had experienced since the previous Saturday night. Saturday was to be our day of rest, we went to see Austin Powers new movie, during which alot of us fell asleep, we then came home and had a barbeque, which was followed by drinking and the singing of Christmas carols and the 'Cheepy Cheepy Song'. We all went to the room to get ready to go out at about 8.30, I fell asleep and nobody woke me up, so I don't know what happened that night, I am assuming that everyone was in bed by half ten so they were fresh for their climb at five the next morning. We all woke up at twenty to five, we were being collected at quarter to by the Harolds Cross unit whom we were climbing with. A quick post mortem of the night before saw us with two casualties who weren't able to climb. We all got our gear together and made our way out to the main street where we all started in a renditon of 'we were the rock and roll kids, rock and roll was all we did...' well I sang it anyway, I had gotten some sleep the night before!

We started on the climb and Harolds Cross were beside us licking their wounds from the night before, we all licked our wounds together! The climb went well with those of use who go to the gym (Caolan and Conor) leading the way, others were struggling from early on. We stopped at regular intervals and reached the half way mark pretty quickly. we stopped there for a while and soon we were all heading for the summit. Myself, Rob, Lorcan and Conor were first there, it was freezing so we headed down pretty soon after. We reached the midway tent to find those who hadn't carried on to the top enjoying a cup of tea, I took their tea pretty quickly! after about half an hour we had all regrouped and we made our way down the mounting, this time with a walking wounded. A lovely lady who had fallen but was thankfully alright. Once we hit the bottom of the mountain we made our way to the Order of Malta tent for tea and sambo's. We stayed there for a while and then made our way back to the Hostel, some of us went swimming, some of us went to sleep, but the fittest of us all (ME) went to the gym to pump some iron.

Sunday night was as good as the rest of them, we all finished off the rest of our crates and stood back and beheld the sight of 168 empty bottles of WKD along with the empthy cans and vodka. We moved onto a nightclub where we were taken by our pursuit of drunken women with no standards, unfortunately all the women in Westport were looking for drunken men with no standards so we didn't qualify, I told Conor we better hurry up and get drunk or these women would move onto greener pastures. We eventually got home where we tried to 'borrow' a road sign, but concerned locals decided to notify the Gardai, so we made a legger for it! We ended up behind a swimming pool where Conor fell esleep on the steps of the entrance, poor little guy, his birthday was only beginning! We decided to take him home so he could rest for the next day. The next morning we arose to have to clean our rooms of the empty bottles and dirty socks with no owners. Somehow we got our security deposit back! We had decided that we would stop off on our way home and go go-karting, just to get us in the racing mood! this was easily won by Caolan 'Michael Schumacher' Reid with Dave Rucko a close second. Not bad times either considering we were still half drunk. So we made our way home, this time not getting lost. The weekend was coming to a close and we all enjoyed sharing in the memories of a weekend that was Westport 2002! Next year, Westport beware!


Cast and Crew -

UN Logistics Officer   -   Paudge Gibson
Thunder Tongue         -   Rob Collins
The Mammy               -   Aife Heffernan
The Big Show             -   Paddy Farrell
Doctor Evil                -   Lorcan O'Halmhain
Dutch Pornstar           -   Caolan Reid
The Lambada             -   Sarah Curry
Sleepy McSnooze        -   Conor Purcell
Christ                        -   As himself
The Voice of Reason   -   Christine
Harolds Cross Unit     -   As itself
Victims                      -   The Westport Public
No Show                    -   Mark Rush
And Special thanks to
The Mountain            -   Itself
Da Legend                 - Musgraves

Legal Disclaimer:
Please Note that none of the above actually happened, The Templeogue Unit does not encourage the drinking of excessive amounts of alcohol because of the serious health risks involved. Nor does this Unit condone the unauthorised borrowing(AKA Theft) of street signs or the consumption of Alcohol by it's members while in a public thoroughfare. We would like to thank the people of the mill Hostel for their help over the weekend and apologise for the state of the room we left you with, it was vandalised in our absence, oh, you can keep the socks!