THE HICKEY WEEKLY
	Poster Boy Blues The aftermath of an election involves a lot of work; from followin’ up on the promises you made to accountin’ for every penny you took in and spent and, of course, there’s the gatherin’ and disposal of posters.       No matter how careful you are about collectin’ posters there will always be one or two you’ll miss. These are often commandeered by resourceful constituents who find various uses for them. In their time my posters have insulated calf sheds, repaired holes in draughty horse boxes and kept the weeds down on the headland of many a garden. A certain woman in Honetyne has my head frontin’ her chicken coop. She nailed one of my posters to a door frame and cut out the face to make an openin where the chickens could go in and out. Occasionally one of them perches on the openin’ to survey the world through my eyes. Pa Quirke spotted this and thought the chicken was a major improvement on my face and took a photograph. The shot won ‘Snapshot of the Month’ in the Weekly Eyeopener under the caption “Hickey gets a Facelift.” They say any publicity is good but a fella could do without that stuff. Aside from the various uses people might put them to, the bulk of posters have to be disposed of at your local friendly recyclin’ centre. I had mine thrown in the shed until the Mother’s naggin’ got too much for me and I enlisted the help of Pa Quirke, his jeep and Pa Cantillon’s horse box to sort me out. Quirke picked me up after his rounds on Friday afternoon and off with us to Cantillon’s. We found the big double horsebox in the yard. Without a word to anyone we tackled up but as we left, Mrs. Cantillon, Pa’s mother came out to wave at us; you’d imagine we were emigratin’ the way she was throwin’ her arms around. “She doesn’t be well,” remarked Quirke, “the nerves.” “Poor woman,” says I. “Tis a pity, and she was always such a great woman for the horses.” We got to my place where Quirke backed the horse box into the yard. To make a long story short when we opened the back door we got some shock; wasn’t there a live horse occupying one side of the box. Mrs Cantillon isn’t as cracked as we thought; she knew we were takin more than we bargained for. We closed the door as quick as we opened it and agreed that if we took the horse back to Cantillon’s we wouldn’t have enough time to come back and pick up my posters and get to the dump before it closed. We left the horse tied in at his side of the box while we loaded the posters into the empty bay. After the dump we’d return box and horse to Cantillon’s yard where we found them. All went well until we arrived at the recycling centre and landfill. We were stopped by a security man at the gate who demanded to know what we had on board, “Election posters for recyclin’” replied Quirke. At that, the horse whinnied and the security man decided to have a look for himself. He told us stay where we were while he took out his mobile and made a few calls. Within minutes the litter warden was down to investigate followed hot foot by the animal welfare people from the Department of Ag. This latter delegation was led by Batt Mac, a hoor of a vet from Bally who hates everyone and anything that ever came out of Killdicken. Before I knew it he accused myself and Quirke of attemptin’ to dispose of a live animal at the recyclin’ centre. I was stunned. After phone calls to the county manager and an auld friend of mine in the Ag department we were let go. However we weren’t let inside the gate with the horse box and had to return home with our hands full. When we got back Cantillon was waitin’ for us and amazed to see the horse in the box. “Why didn’t ye stop when the mother waved ye down?” he asked, “I left a message with her that ye were to drop the horse off at Mark O’Meara’s. He has a little mare he wants covered.” Mark O’Meara’s mare mightn’t have been covered but that hoor of a Batt Mac made sure the story of my trip to the dump got full coverage in all the local media. “Councillor tries to recycle live horse: animal welfare officer appalled.” Early retirement is lookin’ fierce attractive.