Cork Independence Day: Top 10 Excuses

8th Oct 2013

It’s Cork Independence Day next Wednesday October 16th so with that in mind it’s about time that instead of asking why Cork should be an independent sovereign state it is time to start asking why shouldn’t it be.

Let’s stop making excuses for staying inside the profoundly corrupt, unfair and unjust Republic of Ireland. Very soon it will be time to man-up, lower the tricolour and raise the flag of the People’s Republic of Cork.

Here’s the first half of our top ten flawed excuses for remaining under Dublin control.

1. Cork is too small to be a separate nation
Nonsense. The Rebel county measures a mighty 7,500 square kilometres making us the island’s biggest land mass by a long shot. It takes almost three hours to drive from Allihies in the west to Youghal in the east and about an hour and a half to get from the tunnel to Ballincollig in rush hour.

If we declared independence there would still be a staggering 77 nations in the world with a smaller land mass than Cork and we would rank at 172^nd just behind Cyprus, Kosovo and Lebanon. Countries with smaller land masses than Cork include Luxemburg, Malta, Trinidad & Tobago and Bahrain. Imagine those nations looking up to us as bigger countries: daycint!

 

The famous t-shirt might need a rejig

2. Cork doesn’t have a big enough population to sustain sovereignty
You’re having a laugh, boy. Given the Rebel County’s growing population at almost half a million it only puts us slightly lower than half way down the table of nations when it comes to population.  The number of Corkonians certainly won’t dilute our effect on the world – we’ll have more citizens than the likes of Iceland and Malta, which are perfectly viable countries.

The joyous celebrations that would accompany the ending of Dublin-rule in Cork would also cause a population surge similar to when Cork hurlers and footballers won the double in 1990 (some allege this was attributed to World Cup 1990 but the birth rate soared disproportionally in the south).

We estimate that the population of Cork could exceed 1 million by the end of next year if we make a break for it now and start asking the beautiful women of Cork how their fathers are. Up that population league table we go – watch out People’s Republic of China!
 

Population table: PROC would be sitting pretty at 167th.

3. We’d be isolating ourselves from the rest of Ireland
Good. Why involve ourselves with a nation built and controlled by property developers and the political parties they fund? Let’s separate ourselves from the Dublin quagmire and show that it is possible to create a harmonious well-rounded well-off happy country based on economic fairness and nice wristy hurling.

4. Dublin forces might wage war on us prevent the breakup of the Republic
With what exactly? A few cumbersome aging tanks and a couple of rickety green jeeps driven by badly-paid gangly teenagers whose experience of war amounts to shining their boots in Collins’ Barracks or olive tasting for a few weeks in the Leb?
 

The Irish army training for the invasion of Cork if independence is declared

The ‘John Mandeville Memorial Mitchelstown Brigade of the People’s Republic of Cork Secret Service’ would see them off before they reach Kilbehenny. Or for the LOLs we could just send Anthony Nash out to scare them away by taking penalties at them.

5. Cork can’t stand on its own economically
Rubbish. Firstly, the Republic of Ireland itself has shown that it cannot stand on its own economically so that’s a good enough reason to leave in the first place.

Dublin had to borrow 23 billion euro to prevent a sovereign default and as a result the 26-county budget now has to be approved by Eurocrats in Brussels, bankers in New York and Angel Merkel’s pet dog before the Dublin government can even write a cheque so Corkonian independence would mean we’d be firmly in charge of our own treasure chest.

6. Another international border on the island is hardly desirable
We have a hugely lucrative pharmaceutical industry, a few billion barrels of oil, big technology giants like Apple and EMC and schools and third level institutes churning out top technology and science graduates (who recently won the recent European Young Scientist for the umpteenth time? Yeah, you guessed it) so we would be an economic pocket-rocket to be reckoned with.

Cork sends an unfair and disproportionate amount of tax north compared to other counties to fund all the poitical and banking chancers up in Dublin. Did any bungling bank have its headquarters in Cork or was any Corkonian at the financial helm when Fianna Fáil wrecked the gaff? You know the answer, feen. ‘Away linn’, as they say.
 

Tripe. Europe is full of land borders and they work seamlessly.  Thanks to the Rebel Week initiative we even have our own passports now and after our major triumphs in tourist guides like Lonely Planet the Europeans will be hugging us when we show them our papers.

7. We Could run out of Energy.
Cork’s energy infrastructure is solid: dams, wind turbines, a power station and the nation’s oil reserves on Whiddy Island. In fact, when we gain sovereignty we’d have so much spare energy we could turn on the heating and leave the windows open all day and night as an arrogant display of our abundant national resources to make other counties jealous.
 

The Real Dam: not the worst place in the world for a stag night if you missed the flight to the other 'Dam

8. We Couldn’t Possibly Build A Viable Army
As a plucky new nation it would be important to build an unfeasibly large army for the People’s Republic very quickly. All smallies will undergo military training which will include the basic hurling and football skillsets as set down by our Four Star Generals Jimmy Barry Murphy and Donal O’Grady.

Scientists at UCC have estimated that if everyone in Cork jumped up and down at the same time it would knock down ghost estates as far away as Killarney and Dungarvan and cause problems with pacemakers in elderly people in Cashel and Rathkeale. That’s some weapon of mass destruction on our side in fairness. Try and disarm that one, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.
 

Our very own weapon of mass destruction

If you’re looking for some surface-to-air artillery look no further than Anthony Nash who, it is claimed, can hit a sliotar so far that he turns around to catch it. Add some dynamite to his sliotar and that’s a serious in-your-face threat that would deter any foreign military machine: invade our airspace and you’d have a Nasher Lasher to bring you down to earth pretty quickly.

9. We’d have no chance in international sport
We dare you to say that to Rob Heffernan, Sonia O’Sullivan or Steve Redmond. When The Heffmeister arrived into Dublin Airport having come fourth in the London Olympics he was told to get the public bus back to Cork by his fellow “countrymen” who had no interest in the Cork man. Now that he’s a world champ they’re wrapping the Irish tricolour around him again and it’s sickening.
 

Heffernan among his people.

Rob, in the words of our own Roy Keane is a “Cork man first, Irish man second” and with Cork pride , like his, so strong the People’s Republic would thrive in international sport and embarrass our former masters.

10. We might be left out of the Munster GAA championships and Munster rugby?
The province of Ulster has an international border running through it but that doesn’t stop Monaghan men like Tommy Bowe playing for the Belfast outfit and it doesn’t prevent Donegal or Tyrone meeting in the Ulster championship either. The international border would make no difference to domestic sporting arrangements.

As well as raising money for charity events like Rebel week and Cork Independence Day are jogging the minds of disillusioned Corkonians as to why we are remaining inside the 26 county arrangement.

The tide is turning dear friends. It looks like it’s time to declare full independence. 

For more info on Cork Rebel Week click here