The wonder of an Irish blacksmith

‘What’s wrong with your lot?’ asked the blacksmith as he was shoeing our horses. And we had to admit that we really didn’t know. 

We came to Ireland to get away from liberal lunacy but the other English people who come here seem to be intent on bringing it with them. The blacksmith shook his head.

He said he had just been to an English lady further down the peninsula who wanted him to trim a few old donkeys and llamas.

When he arrived, he got out of the car and she wafted up to him in a kaftan. The blacksmith looked baffled as he explained it. He obviously had no idea how far the rich liberal Brits have gone with their homage to everything ethnic, while not having the faintest clue what they are on about.

He looked utterly bemused as he described how this lady wafted up to him in the rain and mud in a kaftan, scarf atop her head, and called out a haughty greeting, then demanded in cut-glass English: ‘You do have insurance, don’t you?’

The blacksmith, in his grimy waistcoat and blackened jeans, told her in typically forthright brogue that of course he had insurance. ‘Do you think I’d be driving around without it? I’ve got road tax as well, and this truck’s been tested and it’s road worthy.’

The kaftan lady said: ‘No, my dear fellow. I mean farrier’s insurance. You do have farrier’s insurance, don’t you?’

Whereupon he looked her raggedy donkeys up and down, then turned and got back in his truck, shouting at her that she could shove it. ‘What the feck is that all about?’ the blacksmith asked us.

I said I really couldn’t say.