Once upon a time: A modern fairytale of dragons in Ireland ...

This is a modern fairytale for the infants settling into their school desks for the first time this September, writes

Cormac MacConnell

So. You adults can depart the scene for a while, and leave the young boys and girls safely to me. Before ye go, though, it’s remarkable that all elements in the fairytale that follows are another procession of the pure truths always retailed here for the common good. Trust me yet again on that front. Away we go.

Once upon a time, when you lads and lassies were still infants in cots and cradles, or maybe not even born yet, the people of the lovely but rugged little island off the mainland of the continent called Europe, the island of Ireland, came together to elect their last real High King.

His name was Michael. Because he was a small man, and Ireland has always had enemies and bullies, there were sneering comments.

Those insults were so wrong, because he quickly proved to the world he was a genuine giant in the way he represented us, including you, your mammies and daddies and grandparents.

Before ye get your Christmas holidays, the High King is running for election again, and he will almost certainly still be High King when ye are grown enough to start secondary school.

Your parents will tell ye all about the election this year, involving votes and ballot boxes, and hot speeches on high platforms and on TV programmes, and shaping up to be something amazingly different to any other election we have ever had.

You see, for starters — and things are still happening every schoolday — it seems a whole squad of creatures called Dragons are doing everything in their power to become our next High King. Already there is certainly one Dragon cleared to take part, and that one will be joined in the battle by maybe two more.

Your parents will explain how these men came to be called Dragons. I’m not certain, but I think it was because they have all been judges in a TV show called Dragons’ Den or something like that. Probably that is the pure truth.

Ye are not to worry too much about the result in a few weeks time, because Michael hammered the one I call the chief Dragon in the last election ,and is well able, on all the evidence to date, to hammer that one again and even two or three more Dragons, when the votes are counted.

This despite the fact that all of the Dragons are extremely wealthy and powerful individuals and, despite their scary sounding names, are already making the kind of gentle promises to the people of Ireland, including all your mammies and daddies, which you would hardly believe are possible.

One of them at least has already promised that he will not take a High King’s salary at all for the job and will gift any salary instead to your mammies and daddies, and indeed yourselves in all your new desks, and all the plain people of this island we inhabit.

That is strong stuff indeed.

Ye can see, even at your young age, that these Dragons are already breathing a modern kind of fire into the battle to be the next High King. There will be other candidates as well as the powerful Dragons that we don’t know the names of yet.

In the background, boys and girls, is a political happening called Brexit, which ye can ask your teachers to explain fully, because I have not enough space or time here.

It is true, though, for centuries, that England was our oldest enemy, and bullied us and damaged us terribly.

There is a famous cartoon, for example, many years old, which traps that reality in a sharp way.

In that cartoon, which appeared in the English papers long, long ago, poor little Ireland was pictured as a small terrier, attached by a strong leash to the much larger witch that is Mother England.

The area where the collar is choking the wee terrier is along the border still causing a huge problem today both for Mother England and the Europe she wishes to leave, and indeed for all of us perched on the back of the little terrier that is Ireland.

It is also true at present that another huge species of Dragon from another even more powerful nation than Mother England is due to visit Ireland in or around the time ye are pushing back from your desks for the Halloween break. This one will not be trying to become involved in the battle to be our next High King, not directly anyway, but if you see your parents and teachers becoming excited and maybe even angry in many cases about his visit, be prepared for that.

More than a few of you are likely to be placed in the care of grandparents or other friends when this Dragon arrives, because mammies and daddies will be involved in (peaceful) protests against his visit.

All the traditional fairytales began with “Once upon a time...” and ended with “And they all lived happy ever after...”

This one is no different.

The times ahead, though they will certainly have challenges for all of us, will all turn out well in the end.

And certainly we are all of us much better off than in the era when that dreadful witch had the little terrier trying to stand up on his hind legs because of the tight collar around his throat. So, indeed, we will all live happily ever after.

Goodbye for now.

Cormac MacConnell is a regular contributor to the Irish Examiner's farming supplement on Thursday.