Part Twenty-Two of the Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: Arracrowe.

Have you ever been across the sea to Ireland? as a variant on some god-awful traditional tune has probably asked you in the past.

Well – we’re going there now. To the Irish Republic, well to the south of Dublin; east of Galway and slightly south and east of Limerick too, almost in the centre of the country.

As James Churchill Proudfoot was proving that Shrim Pies actually do exist, about three hundred miles away, the ramifications of his association with one Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly were being played-out following the leader of the Irish Criminal Family’s untimely demise….

Arracrowe is a quiet little town to be found in the shadow of the Galtee Mountains on the edge of the Glen of Aherlow just south of Tipperary Town in the central southern Midlands of the Republic of Ireland. It’s a sleepy little place and not particularly well known for anything: no Holy Relics; Peat Men Villages; Visitations of the Holy Virgin or anything else Bord Fáilte – the Irish Tourist Board – might think-up to tempt you to visit.

No Pope has ever blessed this place with his presence. No American President has mysteriously found ancestors who originated in Arracrowe. There is no revered National Poet buried in the graveyard. None of the local families have ever provided Taoiseachs for the Free State or the Republic which succeeded it; nor have their sons or daughters won the Eurovision Song Contest.

In summary, Arracrowe is a sleepy old One Horse Town lying by the side of the River Ara where nothing ever happens.

Except that it does provide a really good view of the Emerald Isle’s highest peak: Galteemoor itself as it often broods under heavy skies not too far to the south – but far enough away for the little town not to attract the climbers and walkers who would stay in places much closer to the mountain itself.

If you were to drive through the place from Tipperary Town on its single main street, you would cross the stone bridge over the River Ara (a mere trickle here, close to its source in the Glen of Aherlow). You would already have passed the town’s Golf Club and the World War I Memorial with more names of men who had died for the English King in Flanders and other foreign fields than you might expect a little place like Arracrowe to be able to provide.

Beyond the Memorial and the bridge, you would then see Murphy’s Bar; McCluskie’s General Store; Donovan’s newsagents plus the Garda Síochána Police Station to your left.

If you bothered to stop (and few tourists ever do), you would realise that the `Guards’ (policemen to the uninitiated) are only available three days a week – so you would have to carefully choose the day you wanted to be burgled, assaulted, mugged or even murdered.

Not that these sorts of things are an everyday occasion in Arracrowe.

Continuing your journey, the right-hand side of the street would offer you a view of the Pharmacy (now owned and run by Indians – or `Mohammadans’ as many of particularly the older locals refer to them). Then – just before the very steep hill leading upwards into the hills which surround the Glen of Aherlow , you’ll find the village school and – right next to it – the ubiquitous Catholic Church: Christ the King. The body of the church runs parallel to the road but there is a side entrance which links it to the school next door via a path and the street outside through a gate. But the main entrance to the building is at the end furthest from the school and there is a small car-park facing it with access off the main drag.

Christ the King is an unusual name for an Irish Temple to the Gods – sorry – God, most of which have names like St Mary of the Angels; The Holy Virgin: or just plain old St Mary’s. But there is a statue up on the Galtee Mountains of “Himself” – to use local parlance – which Bord Fáilte would have us believe is in the same Bucket List bracket as Christ the Redeemer in Brazil or the tribute to it in Lisbon which looks down over the River Tagus.

Believe me: it isn’t: the tourism wonks in Dublin are lying! Please don’t waste any of your time – or money – visiting it. I can assure you that any statue you might find in your local park will be far more interesting.

But I digress. Let’s go back to the church. It’s a huge, pretty austere-looking limestone pile. Its appearance could never be argued to exactly endorse the concept of a warm, empathetic god who welcomes everyone to visit for a quick top-up of that little thing called love – as I believe a Pagan rock band once expressed the term. No: the façade Christ the King presents to the world – and the god to be feared which it presumably represents – is literally as cold as the grave itself.

The Faithful still turn-up in their best gear every Sunday. But – like certain football clubs I can think of – the gates aren’t what they once were.

For – in what I am told is an increasingly secular age – there are far fewer of the Faithful than was once the case. Yes – even in god-fearing Catholic Ireland.

Today, though – hardly any time after an unexplained explosion somewhere in godless England had robbed the community of one of its best-known (if not exactly best-loved) sons – the church was a hive of activity from the earliest hour of the morning. Even as darkness still enveloped the main street, the local Priest was in his element.

Like the Garda Síochána, Father Finbar O’Fooligan was apparently only required in Arracrowe’s Christ the King on three days of the week.

The Priest knew that the god he worshipped was supposed to Move in Mysterious Ways – but what was supposed to happen on the other four days when he wasn’t available? Did the old Devil himself have permission from Head Office to run amok? He’d seen the signs – Jumble Sales at the Maple Hall near the War Memorial. Parting the faithful with their hard-earned money in the search for Mammon. Next thing, it would be betting. And canoodling. Then orgies – Bejazus, it was a slippery slope, so it was…

This slow and steady erosion of the power of the Catholic Church and the temptations of the flesh troubled the young cleric almost as much as his own surname.

O’Fooligan?

How did anybody end-up with a name like that? His Uncle Brian had suggested that the Priest who had baptised him had been drunk and got it all wrong at his Christening.

But Uncle Brian was a Protestant – so he would make this most scurrilous and completely baseless remark in the first place, wouldn’t he?

Whatever, he had important work to do today. Anyone visiting the town would be surprised to see what was about to happen.

It was an ordinary school day – but Arracrowe’s school wouldn’t open today. Neither would any of the shops. Indeed, all their blinds would be drawn. As would all the curtains in the houses facing the main street. Murphy’s would be closed until later in the afternoon too. The Garda station wouldn’t open either but the rarely-used flagpole would feature the Irish tricolour flown at Half Mast all day. Cars that were normally parked on the main drag had all disappeared the previous evening: if they hadn’t been moved by the owners, a force more powerful than the Garda Síochána which all of the locals were all too aware of but rarely talked about would do it for them. And they wouldn’t see them ever again.

At ten o’clock, perfectly-behaved school kids – all in uniform and wearing black armbands – would start to silently line the main road as it neared the church. The townsfolk: shopkeepers and customers alike – would line the remaining length of the road all the way to the stone bridge which crossed the river on the edge of Arracrowe. The women would wear black veils over their heads; the men dress themselves in dark suits with black ties. Keener participants would have rosary beads with them; the very keenest would actually be saying it.

Then, at half past ten on the dot, a horse-drawn hearse would approach from the north, slowly descending from the biggest house overlooking the town from the hill adjacent to the River Ara.

And in that big house, we would find the current incarnation of the leaders of the notorious Kelly Gang, whose very recently deceased former leader we have already met. These people were well and truly au fait with an extremely powerful concept which is held in very high regard in Irish culture. This idea is possibly more significant than belief in the Holy Virgin; Guinness – or even Saint Terence of Wogan Himself. It is the almost morbid fear of people born in the Emerald Isle of “Making a Show of Yourself.”

Humiliation in Irish eyes (whether they are smiling or not) is a fate to be avoided possibly more assiduously than Hell fire itself.

The Kelly family was already unhappy that three other criminal products of the Republic were far better-known than they were themselves: The Hutch Group and the Kinahan Organised Crime Group were already famous – or should that be ‘infamous’? – world-wide.

The faces of many of the members of these syndicates of the worst products of humanity are splashed across the world on a regular basis following arrests and extraditions from places as diverse as Dubai; Spain and the USA.

And when members of these groups had knocked each other off (eighteen and counting so far apparently); the funerals of the hoodlums involved were a sight to see: “Ferocious!” as the current leader of the Kelly gang had been known to describe them.

But a less well-known Irish crime family was that run by the Mulligans.

If the Kinahans were Premier League; this lot were probably the equivalent of the National League North; the Kellys maybe League One.

But the Mulligans were catching-up quick. They had started as burglars and small time criminals on the streets of Limerick but had recently graduated from stealing cars and hijacking lorries to invest in `kosher’ businesses: Laundromats and stores selling primarily east European produce being a well-established path which they soon followed.

But – legit or otherwise – the Mulligans’ main business was focused (as it always had been) where all the real money could be made: drug dealing.

They kept a Weather Eye out on their local competitors but with a combination of bluff, threats and occasional brute force (two drug-related murderers so far – and counting), their little empire was expanding both in the numbers of its members and the geography it covered.

The Mulligans had taken a great deal of interest in the Kelly Gang in recent years. They didn’t feel quite ready to launch a bid to encroach on Kelly territory in Ireland – let alone anywhere else – just yet. But the news of the demise of the leader of the Kelly Gang in Buckinghamshire had caused a reconsideration of this. The new leader of the Kelly family firm had quite a fearsome reputation – but nobody could possibly be as scary as the founding father of the Kelly Gang – Zasha Ivanovitch Smirnov.

Yet the rumours still abounded that even he had fallen foul of rivals in England who had no problem in sawing through the brake pipes of his big, posh car. Maybe he hadn’tbeen quite so omnipotent as people were led to believe after all…

And as for his son, Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly, it seemed that he must have bitten off more than he could chew over there in England too, didn’t it? Clearly another gang had disposed of him, as well – how else could he have ended-up being blown to Kingdom Come in his own house?

Maybe the Kelly Gang was losing its grip. In which case, the time to move could be right now….

Standing in the Mulligans’ way was Joe’s replacement. But who was this latest and rightly feared leader of the Kelly crew?

It was no less a personage than the `bitch’ described by James Churchill Proudfoot so unfortunately not too long ago: Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly; Joe’s younger sister.

With the demise of Joseph, she had automatically taken the crown as Matriarch of the family and leader of the clan. Because – unlike the position of the Catholic Church to which she and her closest relations were devout adherents – there was no sexism in the Kelly universe.

We already have an inkling of the importance of words to her recently deceased brother – patronymics and all that – but Siobhán took this a whole step further.

She knew that the name Kelly – in Irish Gaelic – was O Ceallaigh. She also knew that the translation into English was `Strife or War’. Men could come and go but there had never been – and never would be – any man in her life more significant than Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly.

And the demise of her older brother made her angry enough to invoke the Irish meaning of her surname: anyone who crossed the Kelly Clan would be at war with them – and that war would be absolutely merciless as far as she was concerned.

And Siobhán Aleksandovna Kelly wasn’t having any two-bit Bog Trotters called Kinahan or people who lived in rabbits’ houses making a show of her!

And those gobshoites the Mulligans had better watch out too!

She’d heard the rumours. She knew they were likely to make a move onto her gang’s territory probably sooner rather than later.

Well – good luck with that! She would be sending them a little message in Limerick before long: a shooting outside a Laundromat followed by a bomb in one of their supposedly Polish stores – to make them back-off and keep them very firmly in their place.

But first of all, the Kelly Gang was going to make a public demonstration of its considerable wealth, influence and power: something that would never be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it and would be lionised by all who didn’t until its historical significance would forever increase into the future. It would also act as a warning to anybody: rival gangs or criminal families; police or drug enforcement agencies all over the planet – to back-off; or else…

Or else all that considerable wealth, influence and power might just come to focus on them…

So Joseph Aleksandrovitch Kelly’s final hurrah was going to be the most sumptuous, visually stunning and talked-about funeral that the Republic of Ireland had ever witnessed.

The Kelly Gang had commandeered the local Golf Club for the day of the funeral. The owners and the members had the very good sense not to say `no’ when the Kellys came knocking on the door.  With not enough room for all of Siobhán’s Clan up at The Big House on the Hill, the lesser members of the Pecking Order would use the club as Base Camp prior to the funeral itself. Only the very most senior members of the Gang – plus their most favoured guests, such as leading politicians and powerful members of the Garda Síochána – would actually be billeted at the Big House.

Siobhán was happy with the arrangement – and didn’t care what anyone else thought about it. Maybe she should have. Because criminal fraternities, just like all large organisation – the Church or the Army, for instance – have their own internal tensions and rivalries.

Many of the members of the Kelly Gang – men in particular – relegated (as they saw it) to the Golf Club were not very happy about this.

Paranoia of this sort – often fuelled by alcohol and other very powerful drugs – was really not a good idea to allow to fester.

Because the hierarchy among the assembled pimps, drug-dealers, pornographers and other bottom feeders on the dregs of civilisation didn’t like being `made a show of’ any more than anyone else did.

So, in a bid to save face – or just make a point – these Lesser Beings in the Kelly Universe had excelled themselves in trying to make the biggest splash which might just be visible from The Big House and get them noticed.

Theirs might be largest floral tribute to the Dear Departed.

The most expensive present to the head of the family including even extraordinary gestures such as a plan for a Mausoleum to the dead Joe-Boy Kelly, fully planned and paid for in advance.

Things like this had real significance in the power struggle which was always bubbling under the surface in organisations such as the Kelly Gang.

But one of the greatest Status Symbols with which to make a statement of your significance within any criminal organisation anywhere was the sort of car you drove. This was very important.

So at just before ten o’clock in the morning of Joe’s funeral, the rural peace and quiet of Arracrowe was shattered as high performance engines of some of the most expensive automobiles to be found anywhere on the planet cranked into life. “Like a swarm of angry bees” local residents brave – or foolish – enough to speak about this event told us all later.

Maseratis; Paganis; Bugattis; Bentleys and – for the lesser mortals – plain old Aston Martins followed by Porsches for the Pondlife – jockeyed for position in the procession which would follow the hearse and the chief mourners towards the church.

This scramble to be as far ahead in the queue as possible was already adding to the tension among the less than fraternal relations that already existed between certain individuals in the Kelly Gang. When a bright red five million Euros worth of a Pagani almost had its carbon fibre body rearranged by a Bog (no offence intended) Bog Standard Maserati worth an awful lot less, neither driver was particularly happy. A stand-off ensued in which weapons could have been fired in other circumstances. But both injured parties were placated by other members of the clan who reminded them that this was supposed to be a solemn occasion. And – if either of them messed it up – vengeance from above (`Above’ meaning the Big House on The Hill as opposed to any other perhaps even divine influence that devout Catholics might have been worried about) would be swift – and extremely savage.

It might be safest to leave this bubbling cauldron of jealousy and anger for a while. Next time, we shall discover what Threefeet of the Yard has been doing in his new role of the Chief Operating Officer at Shrimpleton Town football club as he attempts to organise its fabulous Summer Gala…

Don’t miss it!