The Eamon de Valera Mysteries | The Curse of The Curse
While going through my grandparents’ attic recently looking for money, I unearthed a box of scripts for a serialised radio drama written in the 1940’s by my grand-uncle Myles Mac Annaigh as part of a forgotten propaganda campaign for his personal hero Eamon de Valera. Imagine it; back then instead of “Netflix and Chill”, people back then had to “Listen to the Radio and Chill”. Haha! Just messing around.
For many years thought lost to history, it is my pleasure to finally re-introduce these scripts to the world, and allow for my grand-uncle to be remembered for being a serious writer as opposed to the “delusional crackpot” who tried to legally marry his cousin’s ghost. But that’s artists for you, eh? Haha! Just messing around.
I hope you enjoy these ripping yarns as much as I do, harkening back to a simpler time when men were men, women were also women, and agendas weren’t forced down our throats.
THE EAMON DE VALERA MYSTERIES
Episode 34: “The Curse Of The Curse”
This radio serial is brought to you by Dento’s Toothpaste. It’s paste, but for your teeth!
NARRATOR:
The city: Dublin! The year: 1945! Picture, if you will, a cave-like interior underneath Boland’s Mill, the site of the greatest military victory of the Easter Rising and indeed, the entire war that followed. This is the Deva-Lair. There, Our Hero sits. You know his name. It’s a masculine name. A name with a strong jaw and a wicked grin. A name with a glint in its eye. A name that conjures up danger, adventure, yes, maybe even a little romance. A thousand women cry it out in their sleep every night.
It is a hero’s name…
EAMON.
A door opens.
EAMON: Who goes there?!
CHARLIE: Only me!
EAMON: Well, well, well, if it isn’t my plucky boy sidekick, Li’l Charlie McQuaid!
CHARLIE: How was the funeral?
EAMON: It was fine.
CHARLIE: The German ambassador treated you well?
EAMON: He did.
CHARLIE: You don’t think doing the whole “flag-with-that-specific-symbol-on-it-at-half-mast” thing was a bit too far, no?
EAMON: Can we drop it?
CHARLIE: Sorry. So what’s on the agenda today? What daring escapades are we embarking upon?
EAMON: I’m just patching us through now.
CHARLIE: What does that ol’ blowhard have for us today?
Their Supreme Commander, POPE PIUS, appears on the Projecto-Screen.
EAMON: Good evening, Your Holiness!
PIUS: Good evening, gentlemen.
CHARLIE: Oh, Gee Willikers! I’m sorry, Mr. Pope, sir, I mean, Your Holiness sir.
PIUS: (Laughing fondly) That’s okay, Charlie, My, but you’ve grown into a fine big lad.
EAMON: It’s true. He barely fits on my lap anymore!
They all laugh.
PIUS: Enough! Jesting is all well and good, but my spies have distressing news. It appears the fiendish Brits are at it again!
CHARLIE: Oh, crumbs!
PIUS: Crumbs indeed.
EAMON: I hate the Brits more than anything.
CHARLIE: Not as much as me! I hate them more!
PIUS: Gentlemen, gentlemen. We are agreed. We ALL hate the Brits an equal and indefinable amount. They are TOTAL shit lads.
CHARLIE: Yeah, what kind of an advanced nation that considers itself free takes orders from some pompous, money-sucking figurehead based purely on an outdated belief in his infallibility.
There’s an awkward silence.
EAMON: What do they have up their sleeve this time, Supreme Commander?
PIUS: What I am about to tell you is not for the faint of heart, or the deeply stupid. On that note, are there any women present?
CHARIE: Women? Here?! With us two?!
Eamon and Charlie laugh heartily at the mere thought.
PIUS: Indeed, what was I thinking?
CHARLIE: So what rotten scheme have they cooked up for us this time?
PIUS: I want you to brace yourselves, gentlemen.
EAMON: What is it this time?! Poison gas? Air strikes? Undercover protestants? The reanimated zombie corpse of The Traitor Michael Collins?
PIUS: No. Worse.
EAMON: Dear god…
PIUS: What do you know of….female sanitary devices?
Charlie vomits violently.
EAMON: I’m made of sterner stuff than Li’l Charlie here, Your Holiness, but that near broke even me.
CHARLIE: As if girls couldn’t get any GROSSER! YUCK!
PIUS: Li’l Charlie, in your capacity as Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, what was your personal scientific findings that caused you to ban tampons?
CHARLIE: (Clears throat) It was clear that by using such devices, young women’s passions might be (dramatic pause) INFLAMED.
PIUS: Well, it would appear the dirty Brits agree with you, and are smuggling in a shipment of them via submarine, tonight, to be distributed on the Irish black market. Good luck, and God Bless.
CHARLIE: Oh Eamon, what are we going to do?! We have no idea where they’re going to land, it could be ANYWHERE!
EAMON: Not anywhere, Charlie. One place and one place only.
CHARLIE: Where?
EAMON: A hellish pit; haven to nothing but West Brits and quislings and big tall mean bastards who say that my girlfriend I met in America that time didn’t exist.
CHARLIE: Oh no, not….
EAMON: Yes, I’m afraid so, Charlie. Cork.
A dramatic pause.
CHARLIE: I mean, it is weird you don’t even have a PHOTO of her.
EAMON: Just leave it, yeah?
NARRATOR: Later that night…
A door opens.
EAMON: Here we are, in Cork.
CHARLIE: This really is the worst county.
EAMON: It is a total shithole.
CHARLIE: Where are the dirty Brits going to land?
EAMON: If I have done my calculations correctly, and I definitely have, then right here over there.
CHARLIE: Sound.
EAMON: Sshh, what’s that?
CHARLIE: Just looks like any old submarine to me.
EAMON: Would any old submarine have the UNION JACK displayed so proudly?
Charlie vomits violently.
EAMON: Quiet! Two British agents are unloading the submarine with crates full of sanitary devices.
CHARLIE: I know, I can see, I’m looking at the exact same thing you are.
EAMON: I know, yeah.
Two evil British agents , POWELL & PRESSBURGER, cackle and scheme as they unload crates from the sub, like Eamon just said.
POWELL: Hurry, Pressburger! We need to be back to England by morning so we can sacrifice some more innocent virgin children to Azabius, our Protestant God.
POWELL&PRESSBURGER: All Hail Azabius, The One True God!
CHARLIE: I’m scared, Eamon. Hold me.
Eamon holds him. Tight.
EAMON: Have no fear, you sweet, sweet boy. You there! Stop what you’re doing at once!
POWELL: It’s..it’s…it’s…
PRESSBURGER: De Valera!
EAMON: Ha ha!
POWELL: Aaaahh! He’s just shot us with some sort of…knockout gas pistol…
Eamon has just shot both men with his knockout gas pistol.
EAMON: Stay the hell out of my theocracy, you damn sons of bitches.
CHARLIE: Quick thinking shooting them with your knockout gas pistol.
EAMON: Thank you, Charlie. I couldn’t have done it without you.
CHARLIE: What are we going to do with all…these?
He shudders at the sight of all those sanitary devices.
EAMON: Same thing we did with that shipment of French letters we intercepted last month. We sink this mother to the bottom of the ocean.
They both laugh heartily.
CHARLIE: (Beat) Do you ever worry that we’re on the wrong side of history and that our beliefs and actions will have negative, long-lasting repercussions?
EAMON: No.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, back at the Deva-lair.
PIUS: Great work, the both of you!
EAMON: Thank you, Your Holiness, but I couldn’t have done it without Charlie.
CHARLIE: I’m sure glad we got those dirty stinking Brits out. Did you know, Your Holiness, that they sacrifice virgin children to their god? Imagine belonging to a religion like that? Gee Willikers!
He shivers at the thought.
EAMON: Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Charlie. There’s no danger of any virgin children in the Vatican any time soon, isn’t that right, Your Holiness.
PIUS: (Flustered) That reminds me, Eamon, I have another mission for you. It’s a cover-up job. Think you can handle it?
EAMON: Your Holiness, know this: Whenever there is trouble in this fair isle, whenever there is strife, I’ll be there. Whenever the fiendish British try and meddle in our affairs, I’ll be there. Whenever there is a woman attempting to assert herself after hearing about the carry-on that goes on in America, I’ll be there. Whenever the devout Catholic majority has its voice drowned out by the biased liberal media, I’ll be there.
CHARLIE: I’ll be there too!
Eamon and Pius laugh heartily.
EAMON: Oh Charlie. If it didn’t mean my lips would burst into flames and I’d be cast into the Eternal Pit of the Damned for technically committing sodomy, I could kiss you.
Fade out on all three men laughing heartily.
NARRATOR: Next time, on The Eamon De Valera Mysteries…
CHARLIE: Look, Eamon! Over there!
EAMON: My God, it’s…it’s…
CHARLIE: It sure is!
EAMON: And it’s…it’s….
CHARLIE: No question!
EAMON: Brace yourself, Charlie!
They scream.
