Get ready for Olympic glory and Bertie’s return in a bumpy 2012

WELL, Happy New Year to ye all!

Look, it can’t be any worse than the brute of a year we’ve all enjoyed. And if my predictions for next year (with apologies to Old Moore) come true, at least we’ll have a bit of colour and excitement in our otherwise debt-ridden lives in 2012.

I do this every year, of course. I should probably be making all the good new year resolutions, but with willpower like mine that’s almost certainly going to be a wasted exercise. Instead of resolutions, I made all sorts of predictions this time last year — and some of them almost came true.

Sadly, Willie O’Dea didn’t make it to the leadership of a much-depleted Fianna Fáil (pity about that – he’d have been a lot more colourful), and John Gormley isn’t (yet) running an organic vegetable stall in Moore Street. Neither Daniel O’Donnell nor Dickie Rock were nominated by Fianna Fáil for the Presidency. We do, though, have a President who likes to use big words, even if it’s not quite the person I had in mind this time last year.

But I’m confident that this year’s predictions will definitely come true. I’ve read my Nostradamus, consulted the three witches from Macbeth, and even looked up the Paddy Power website to check out the odds. So here it goes:

January: An advertisement on eBay offers 1,000,000 tonnes of salt for sale. The seller is the National Roads Authority, whose spokesman explains that they didn’t want to be caught out like last year, so they had ordered three times what they needed, and the mild winter had caught them on the hop again. After the salt is sold to the new government of North Korea in exchange for 1,000 tonnes of their local crop, Ireland is suddenly caught in a vicious cold snap. Main roads everywhere, apart from those covered in basmati rice, are impassable.

February: In a sensational development, the Mahon Report is finally published, and former taoiseach Bertie Ahern issues a short statement claiming that the content has totally vindicated him. A detailed comparison between Mr Ahern’s statement and the thousand pages of the Report reveals that the phrase “Bertie Ahern” on page 47 has been joined to the phrase “won money on the horses” on page 852, by the addition of three dots. Mr Ahern insists that the 805 pages in between have nothing to add. “Sure who’ll read that old rubbish,” he declares.

March: The Irish Rugby team celebrates St Patrick’s Day in style by beating England at Twickenham and completing their first Grand Slam since 2009. Bertie Ahern issues a statement congratulating the team and claiming that his dream of building a truly national sports stadium is now totally vindicated. “Sure I never wanted it to be named after me,” he said.

April: The Government announces a further downgrading of facilities for ex-taoisigh. Instead of state cars they are in future to be issued with bicycles, bicycle clips, and headlamps, but they will be required to supply the batteries for the lamps themselves. In a surprise development, however, the government decides to exempt all former taoisigh whose surnames begin with the letter B or higher from this change.

May: It is announced that Queen Elizabeth is to pay a return visit to Ireland, and this time her itinerary will include both jurisdictions on the island. Her husband Prince Philip has been advising the Department of Foreign Affairs on landmarks Her Majesty would like to see. The Beamish brewery in Cork, the Jameson Distillery in Dublin and the oldest distillery in the world, Bushmills in Co Antrim are chosen.

June: As Ireland prepare to take on Croatia in their opening Euro 2012 match in Poznan, that city’s half a million population is reported to have been doubled, as Irish fans sell everything they own to be there. Many of them are reported to have taken advantage of Ryanair’s “Euro 2012 Poland Special”, with cheap flights landing just outside the Polish border in Leipzig. “Sure it’s only a short hop, around 500km from the stadium,” says a bullish Michael O’Leary.

July: The country goes berserk as the team reaches the semi-finals of Euro 2012. As runner-up to Spain in Group C, Ireland had to face England in the quarter finals. A historic result was crowned by a Robbie Keane penalty in extra time after Rooney was seen handling the ball. He explained afterwards that he had been trying to give two fingers to the crowd at the time. In a brief statement, Bertie Ahern asked “now do ye believe me about the Bertie Bowl?”

August: More sporting fever grips the country, as another Irish team returns from the Olympic Games in Dublin having recorded dozens of personal bests. Heroine of the team is Katie Taylor, who announces her intention to defend her gold medal in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

September: The Government announces a mini-budget. €50 million has to be raised, to pay for a new contract for Giovanni Trapattoni, which will ensure he stays in charge of the Irish team until his 92nd birthday. The rest of the money will have to go to pay the legal fees incurred by Bertie Ahern at the Mahon Tribunal, after a number of his friends decline to take part in a whip around. The United Left Alliance expresses outrage over the proposal to pay Ahern’s legal fees, but defers judgement on the Trappatoni contract until they assess whether it’s popular with the fans.

October: After a long and complex interview with the gardaí about his years of winnings on the horses, a defiant Bertie Ahern emerges to propose that Ireland should bid to host the 2020 Olympics. “Just imagine how many personal bests we’d get if our athletes were running in Abbotstown – especially since the other teams would never be able to find it,” he says.

November: As RTÉ nears the end of its Golden Jubilee year, and runs out of old programmes to show, the station announces that it is going to spend the next 50 years trying to do something it has never managed before, a comedy series. It will be called “Living with Mahon”, and is based on the attempts of the regulatory authorities to pin something – anything – arising from the Mahon Report on a cast of wacky and hilarious former politicians.

December: As the country is once again blanketed in snow, and roads become impassable, the NRA is forced to admit that supplies of basmati are running low. Emergency legislation is introduced, to enable the government to requisition the stocks of rice in every Chinese, Indian and Thai restaurant in the country. A statement from former taoiseach Bertie Ahern says “this would never have happened in my time. Sure we’d no end of money back then.”

And if none of that comes true, don’t blame me. As they said about the Titanic in Harland and Wolff, “sure it was grand when it left here”. And anyway, the one thing we can be sure about the next year is that there will be plenty to amuse us, exasperate us, entertain us, and drive us demented. Happy New Year.