MY COLLEAGUE Eamonn McCann has penned a pithy tribute to “the singing priest,” Michael Cleary, who popped his clogs over the Christmas.

Sam Snort does not have a great deal to add to this trenchant, comprehensive, and lucid analysis, but, hey, I’ll give it a lash anyway. It’s not every day that a singing priest is silenced, departing the stage and flinging his plectrum into the audience for the last time.

I recall being particularly impressed by his confident assertion in a Hot Press interview that he could go down to Leeson Street any night of the week and pick up a babe, if he felt like it. The implication was that he didn’t feel like it. Clearly, he wasn’t well for a long time.

The photograph which accompanied the article indicated the boundless self-confidence of the man, to be so sure of such a thing.

My reaction to his statement was that he might try, but Sam Snort’s ass would be in the way. After a leurve session with your hero, I cannot imagine a babe settling for a priest, singing, dancing, or otherwise, but then, they must somehow re-acclimatise themselves to those much lower in the pecking order, so perhaps he would have got his end away if he hung on till the end of the night, and parted with the old envelope collection to take the bare look off it.

His extraordinary radio programme catered for a curious swathe of suffering humanity. It comprised an amalgam of babes well past their sell-by date, every demented God-botherer in Dublin, and the inmates of our prison institutions. Not so much the ABC 1 section of the market as the XYZ 26 sector.

PIOUS HORSESHIT

In many of the tributes, he was described as a very “human” priest who “understood people,” as distinct from the sub-human priests who don’t understand people. Like Sam Snort, people came to him with their problems, and he gave them a rub of the relic.

Like Sam Snort, he had a roving brief, though unlike Sam Snort, he did not have a humongous pecker crammed into his roving briefs. At least not that we know of. Obituaries tend to be very lax in their descriptions of dick-size. Not that it matters much now, what with Michael rowing the boat ashore.

His followers pointed to the fact that he was aware of human foibles and frailties. The grotesques of the Irish entertainment industry would confess their perversions to him, and he would say, “you’re a bit of a bollocks, aren’t you Johnny?,” and Johnny would laugh and say, “sure you’re a bit of a bollocks yourself, Mick” – and thus the sum of human wisdom and spirituality would be increased, willy-nilly.

Now that his radio spot is vacant, Sam Snort is thinking of donating his services as a replacement for the voluble cleric.

Instead of “Dublin Tonight with Fr. Michael Cleary,” I am thinking of calling it “Pussy Galore Without Fr. Michael Cleary.”

I suppose it would be a tribute to him – but on the other hand, it might not be a tribute to him at all.

I would open the show with Steely Dan singing “Oh Michael, Oh Jesus,” and then proceed to talk dirty to the babes of Dublin town, as a change of pace from telling people about forthcoming retreats, and other such pious horseshit.

I might throw in the odd little joke, like, “I just got a postcard from hell, and Fr. Mick says that he’s keeping a seat warm for me, right up against the bar.” He’d appreciate that kind of informality, don’t you think? (He’d love it – Ed.)

All things considered then, he will be sorely missed. Not.

MIGHTY SWORD

And after that dignified adieu, it is time to say yo, Timothy Yeo! Bonking Tory of the month! My main man and as ugly a sonofabitch as ever waved his love-truncheon in the general direction of womankind.

It is good to think of the stout Yeo-man joining in the clamour at the Tory Party Ard-Fheis for unmarried mothers to be hanged, drawn and quartered, and then slipping a few inches to some unfortunate babe later in the evening. Family values are one thing, but they will never prevent a man claiming his poontang, if that is his desire.

I was aghast at the idea of Yeo-Yeo being called in by the wretches of his constituency to give an account of what he has been doing with his tadger in recent times, and how this affects his ability to run the country.

I have some difficulty in visualising Sam Snort being called to boot in this fashion, perched in front of a platoon of sick motherfuckers and sad old biddies, being upbraided for doing the business without keeping them fully informed of developments.

Big Bill Clinton, too, is getting a bit of earache for having his dick sucked a few years ago.

I think it was very considerate of Slick Willie to do his fornicating when Hillary wasn’t around, just in case she might be a bit pissed off to find her excellent husband with his mighty sword inserted in the mouth of one of his constituents.

How are you supposed to empathise with the people you serve if you don’t shag a few of them from time to time?

Sam Snort sees no way that you can be doing your job properly without taking Hissing Sid for a tour of the manor.

I am sure that Father Mick would say “dead right, Sam,” were he not himself, in fact, dead. Right.

your ever-lovin'

Samuel J. Snort SJ