Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

I had forgotten all about this tale until Eileen, a regular daily reader of Thurles.Info, reminded me today.

The story goes that John Ryan was a successful large scale Chicken Breeder in Co Tipperary, specialising in high grade guaranteed fertilized hen’s eggs. He had several hundred young hens (Better known in his trade as ‘Pullets,’) laying eggs each day for his hatchery. He also employed ten pedigree Cockerels, thus ensuring that his ‘pullets,’ eggs were properly fertilized.

Mainly because of emerging business difficulties due to the current recession, John now decided to seek advice from Teagasc, latter the Irish agriculture and food development authority, who having visited his establishment advised that it was in his best interests to examine his productivity and kept daily performance records.

Enda – The Brown Leghorn

To ensure maximum productivity, daily ‘Time & Motion Statistics ‘ were now necessary and to this end John purchased some tiny bells and attached them to all his Roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing and which was wasting time. Now any Rooster not performing to best business practise could be retired to his soup pot and quickly replaced in the hen run. John could lie back on his porch daily simply filling out efficiency reports, by just listening to the bells chimes as his cockerels energetically performed their labours.

John’s No 1 top performing Rooster, a very fine specimen of the light brown Leghorn variety, was named Enda. One morning he noticed Enda’s bell hadn’t rung as was usual. On further investigation, he saw the other roosters were all busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but these pullets, on hearing the roosters coming, were running successfully for cover, thus avoiding all contact with their now perspiring males.

To John’s amazement on the other hand, Enda had his bell’s clanger held tightly in his brownish beak, so it couldn’t ring. He would then sneak up on a preferred young hen, do his prescribed work and quickly move on to his next object of desire.

John was so proud of Enda, he decided to enter him in the Thurles Christmas Fair of that year, where he became an overnight sensation, when observed by other well known enthusiastic chicken breeders.  News of his fame quickly spread worldwide, and soon Enda was nominated for, and indeed awarded with the coveted Swedish “No Bell Piece Prize,” and the following year the “Pulletsurprise,” latter awarded annually by Columbia University.

It now became clear to the Irish political scene, that Enda had all the traits required for a politician in the making.

Let us be honest here, who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted International Awards on our planet, simply by being the best at sneaking up on his unsuspecting populace and screwing them, knowing full well the latter weren’t paying proper attention to current affairs.