Ask Audrey: Is it possible to get to Shannon Airport without driving through Limerick?

Sorting Cork people out for ages

Ask Audrey has been sorting Cork people out for ages.

Hello, it’s Rosealeen here in Ballydesmond. There have been a few strange faces around the village in the past few months, and not just the strange faces you see on the crowd from the Kerry side of the border. The faces here belong to people who read one article in the Irish Times under the headline ‘Sophisticated brainboxes moving to rural Ireland for simpler things in life’, and all of a sudden you have people from Dublin asking Reena in the post office if she sells fermented mushrooms.

I met a fella called Gordon yesterday on a cargo bike and didn’t he ask me if there was an art-house cinema in Ballydesmond and I said no, maybe try Scartaglin they’re fierce pretentious over there, just to get rid of him and his fecking perfect looking twins. Anyway, there’s a bunch of them after forming a protest group to stop a local rooster doing his cock-a-doodle-doo at 5am, their slogan is ‘Ssssh Dude, we’re trying to do yoga here’. Did you ever hear the like of it? Would it be ethnic cleansing if we sent them back to Dublin, tell me? 

- Rosealeen, Ballydesmond

It’s not just Dublin. My friend, Straight Talking Sandra, left a perfectly respectable house in Ballinlough for a doer-upper outside Boherbue. I said, how are you finding the locals? She said, I just follow my sense of smell.

C’mere, what’s the story with Shannon? Myself and the old doll were thinking of a weekend in Kerry there at the end of August. (Not a dirty one like, we’re together 14 years and the only time we’d have a bit of action now is if there’s nothing good on Netflix. I might get back to you with a separate question about that the next day.) 

Anyway, herself priced up a hotel break with food and pints factored in and I said, c’mere, you’d buy a pub in Lanzarote for that. So then we said we’ll go to the Canaries but it’s too late to fly from Cork seeing they have decided to shut down the airport for a few months, just in case any of us manage to escape. 

The old doll then said something you should never hear from a Cork person – why don’t we fly from Shannon? I said, well for starters, you have to go through Limerick and they’ll have flags out saying “No All-Ireland, No Airport, Ye are Total Gowls.” So Audrey, is it possible to get to Shannon Airport without driving through Limerick?

- Dowcha Donie, Blackpool

M y nephew spends all his time on Google maps, but he still hasn’t managed to find his way to a job. I said, how would you travel to Shannon airport? He said, nervously. #ScaryClare -y

Hey dude, I’ve a trust fund that’s worth more than County Sligo but you wouldn’t know it by the way I shout “Shame about the rebels lah, there’s always next year” at our gardener, who’s big into hurley or whatever they call it on council estates. 

Anyway, there’s this really hot babe in my Tantric Samba class, she’s from Slovakia or is it Slovenia, and we’ve a bond because I just take people as they come rather than pre-judging them for coming from a poor country. I suggested we take our relationship to the next level, she said I only date guys who are creative, I said I sell fried chicken and sushi out of a horsebox, she said that sounds like a business started by your Dad, which is true, and now I’m sad because she looks like a super-model. 

I told my buddy Bryan with a Y, and he said dude, write a few children’s books, just make sure they have a feisty girl and a timid hedgehog who turns his life around. And I’m like dude, you should start a boutique consultancy called ‘Ideas by Bryan with a Y.’ So, Audrey, can you organise a publishing deal for me there pronto, six figures, make it seven?

- Ed, Ballintemple.

I rang my friend who works in publishing and said, is there money in children’s books? She said, loads. I said, why? She said so parents can pretend their kids don’t spend all day playing Minecraft.

I t’s getting vicious on our WhatsApp group, Douglas Road Stunners Who Are Disappointed to Hear You Didn’t get the Vaccine. It all started when Fifi_WhiteRangeRover brought up the biggest issue in all our lives at the moment – where to find a flat white for over €4 because anything less than that is a bit Carrigaline. 

Fifi said we totes have to be seen in the best cafes after the school run, and there is talk of a place near Douglas that has put its prices up to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Laura_ SerialEntrepeneur said doesn’t work for me bee-atches because that’s indoor dining and I’m not vaccinated, it’s all just a whizz to control our free spirits. Well, you could have heard a pin drop, in a WhatsApp sense. Actually, Cliona_LookAtMyCheekBones send a GIF of a pin-dropping, but that didn’t change the fact that Laura is dead to us now. So, like, how do we officially banish her?

- Jenni, Douglas Road

I rang the Posh Cousin and said how would you treat this Laura?  She said  I’d shun her in public. I said, for health reasons? She said, no, for she’s only from the Douglas Road reasons.