Guest Blaggards is inspired by Mr. Mulley’s latest foray into blogland - Guest Bloggers.

My first guest is John Joe Ryan, painter & decorator, pigeon breeder and water diviner. This local entrepreneur is well known amongst pigeon fanciers as the man who reared Ryan’s Fancy from a egg to become the county’s 3-time champion tumbler in the 1970’s. But I’ll let John Joe tell you more. (Note: John Joe is not one for typing so the following was dictated to myself, so don’t blame him for spelling errors).

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What’s in this for me? [Pause] Right. I’ll do it. But if ya shaft me like ya did over the front room job, I’ll feking have your guts for garters, ya bollix. Do ya hear me? [Pause] Right. Here we go.

Me name is John Joseph Ryan. Me parents called me John Joe and it stuck. Some people called me J.J. but the mother put a stop to that fairly lively. She never liked initials, her being Ursula and all.

The painting started when I was about 11. [Pause] I fukin did start at 11. Stop butting in ya hairy hoor. [Pause] I suppose ya could say the paint was in me blood. I came from a long line of painters, and to cap it all I was the 7th son of a 7th son and everyone said I was gifted at it. [Pause] No, the water divining came from the mother’s side.

That brings me on to the mother’s family. The Reddys. A big family of them there was too. When me granda, Pat Reddy, married Alice Dunne there was killings at the wedding. Fierce sledging altogether broke out when Fr. O’Connor of all people said that me granny was Dunne before she was Reddy. [Pause] Oh, yeah. The lads.

I got into the pigeons the year of the Great Snow. There wasn’t sight nor light to be had of a turkey for the Christmas what with the farmers keeping them locked in sheds because of the cold. I’d be sent out to get a bird for the table but all I’d ever come home with was a pigeon or two. The father and meself started training them to use elastic bands like chest expanders. They wasn’t a decent drumstick on the table that year but at least we all got a bit of breast. [Pause] Would ya wait. I’m getting to that.

It was then I coped on I was handy enough at catching them live and we were eating well. But after weeks of grubbing one of them up and him using the elastic, didn’t I let the feker loose by mistake. He flew up and up and up, and then the weight got to him and he came crashing back down, rolling and cartwheeling to beat the band. And that’s how I came to breed a champion tumbler. [Pause] But there’s more. [Pause] But I didn’t get to tell ya about the time, with nothing but a boiling kettle and a litter of kittens, I made a fortune selling Sphynx cats to the folks above in Dublin. [Pause] What ya mean, see me next week? Now, me bucko. Right now or I’ll …

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Check back next week for more Guest Blaggards.