After a week-long radio campaign against Head Shops, which saw a legitimate business burned to the ground, RTE insiders have declared the exercise a ‘100% success’ and revealed it to be a test case through which social change can be made.

Joe Duffy reacts to news of Capel Street fire

A source told the Irish Sentinel last night “The Head Shops thing was just the start. There was a meeting of the stations chiefs late last year in which they decided to use their influence as the national broadcaster to shape Irish life on a day to day basis. They felt there was a niche there now that the church’s control has dwindled. And what better way to do it than through the nation’s second most listened to radio show, Liveline?”

Before Joe Duffy’s radio show began its campaign of scaremongering and misinformation Head Shops had been legal in Ireland for years without anybody batting an eyelid, but store owners hadn’t counted on Duffy’s production team shamelessly exploiting the death of one man in 2005 to sway public opinion against them. As more and more people rang into tell Joe how disgusted they were with these shops that none of them ever used and were in total, blissful ignorance of until they heard about them on the radio, the more pressure grew to do ’something’ about them.

Listeners, who both smoke and drink alcohol, lambasted the owners for selling dangerous products which could adversely affect one’s health. Ultimately, it appears that the crusade resulted in the arson attack on the Nirvan head shop on Capel Street, destroying it and several nearby buildings, and resulting in the closure of one of Dublin’s main thoroughfares to traffic.

“We had a fuckin’ party!”, said the RTE insider. “At best we thought there might be a bit of legislation in 18 months or a few people out with placards but getting the whole place burned down was beyond our wildest dreams. It just shows that Liveline is the voice of the people when we tell them what it is they should say. The plans have been ratcheted up now and with our new two week long offensive against foreigners we’re sure Ireland will be a proud, and much less swarthy nation, once again”.

It’s not the first time Liveline has been embroiled in controversy. Transport Minister Martin Cullen and his advisor Monica Leech sued the show over allegations made by a caller and in 2006 there was outrage as a Daily Mail journalist accused gays and lesbians of wanting to adopt children so they could practice legal incest.

: We spoke to the people of Dublin and asked them for their reaction to the Capel Street fire and Liveline’s Head Shop campaign.

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Ruler of the tiny kingdom of Smurf Village, Papa Smurf, has been subjected to racial abuse, both physical and verbal, whilst visitng the Co. Meath town of Athboy.  Smurf, who is 165 years old this March, currently visiting Athboy as part of the Town Twinning Process was said to ‘visibly smurfed’ at his treatment by locals and in particular the lord Mayor of Athboy, Cllr  Fintan Snatch.

"Beardy little wanker" says Mayor of Athboy

Snatch, a former Grand Dragon of the West Leinster chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, was against the Town Twinning from the start. “We’re already Twinned with Monroeville in Alabama, Wheelright in the great state of Kentucky and Drumshambo, why would we want to associate ourselves with this breed of pint-sized shitehawks? I don’t trust them. They’re devious, beady eyed little pricks and what’s the story with the pointy white hats? They look like a bunch of hypothermic field mice…..errr with hats on ”

In a meeting with Mayor Snatch, the Smurf leader was told in no uncertain terms that the people of Athboy had no interest in twinning with the tiny principality and was given 24 hours to leave the country.  ‘I’m quite literally smurfed. He spent the entire meeting smurfing in my face and then had the smurf to call me a “beardy smurf wanker”. What the smurf is his smurfing problem?He said if I didn’t get the smurf out of town immediately he would have the entire population of Smurf Village viciously smurfed in the ass and then smurfed in a watery smurf. I’m getting the smurf out of here. ’

Papa Smurf was accompanied by Foreign Affairs minister, Smurfette, who was also subjected to racial abuse and lewd comments from townsfolk during their 2 day visit to the east midlands.  ‘I was having a BLT in The Fiddle and Firkin  and some puck ugly wankrag who stank of cats piss tried to grab me by the goother. I wasn’t having any of that so I glassed the fucker. Next thing I know I’m surrounded by a group of malodorous mutants decked out like the Clancy brothers shouting all sorts of abuse at me. “Come here to me you till I rape ya” “Show us yer pink bits you little blue scag” “ Get up on that you clowdy looking cunt”. It was pretty horrible. I made my escape by pointing to a picture of the 1996 all Ireland winning team and asking them to find Colm O’Rourke. As they leered in awe at their former heroes I pulled a legger out through the smoking area‘, said the strangely attractive, pint-sized beauty.

The Smurfs quickly scuppered plans to visit  Belfast after reading Ian Paisley’s Wikipedia page and finding that he’s “That fucking Paedopile Gargamel’s”, Godson’

Adele Staunton, media pig

Social media experts up and down the country today rejoiced at the launch of Google’s new social media product ‘Buzz’.

“We’ve had a mare of a Q1 so far” said Adele Staunton of leading Irish digital media agency Vapidit.ie

“Our portfolio of expertise was waning there for a short while. People had begun to unlock the deep, dark mysteries of Twitter and Facebook and we found our 2000 euro per day ‘Social Media Synergy’ workshops were beginning to lack in popularity. We needed some new hype, and thankfully, Google Buzz has come along at just the right time to fill the money shaped hole in our portfolio of bullshit.”

“In the last 24 hours, Vapidit.ie has established itself as Ireland’s leading authority on Google Buzz. How? That’s a deep, dark mystery that I cannot divulge, and you could never hope to understand. All you need to know is that WE are the experts. Only we can help your business leverage it’s  untapped sales potential in the sociosphere.”

So it’s just a simple matter of upscaling your clients’ vertical markets into a socially scalable, cloud-aware hyperniche?

“Pretty much. Our marketplace is mostly advertising agencies who don’t have a clue about the internet but know that they should be ‘involved’ in social media somehow. They saw it on the cover of the Economist, but were too lazy to actually read the article. At the proposal stage, we just throw a couple of buzzwords at them like ‘retweet’, ‘unfollow’ and ‘fan page’… before you know it, marketing managers are crapping  themselves because they’re hearing technical-sounding words they’ve never heard before. They don’t want to seem out of the loop, or that they’re losing their edge.”

“Once you instill that fear, well, the money starts flowing like the fucking Niagra Falls.”

“We’re talking workshops, seminars, conferences, open coffee, closed coffee,  shitbrick Tuesdays… you name it, we’re selling it to them for sizeable chunks of their marketing budget. All we’re really doing though is copying stuff off someone else’s blog and pasting it into Powerpoint, but don’t tell anyone.”

So business is booming then?

“Google Buzz is going to keep us in Grande Lattes and Macbook Airs for at least the next 12 months.”

What then?

“Sure if the hole falls out of it, I can always go back gutting fish part-time in the factory down the docks. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll probably go into SEO.”

Earnest celebrities and well meaning members of the public have today called for new disaster through which they show the world what caring people they are.

At a press conference in Dublin this morning a phalanx of media personalities, actors, musicians and other household names were joined by ordinary people from the street to express their concerns that people no longer have blanket coverage of them being overtly altruistic.

“We feel it’s time nature provided us with another opportunity to show how great we are”, said the lead singer of some band who nobody’s ever really heard of but play quite regularly in Whelan’s and the like. “Only 12 people showed up for our Haiti fundraising gig last night and that can only mean one thing … people are bored of Haiti. I mean, there were only 21 at the one the night before and 25 at the one the night before that”.

Ryan Tubridy larks about in Port au Prince

“It’s true that there’s an air of ‘meh’ about Haiti now”, added Ryan Tubridy whose hilarious Twitter updates from Port au Prince kept a nation entertained for minutes on end. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask for something else now. A medium sized tsunami, a volcano, a cyclone … Jakers, I think we’d even take a bog-standard Limnic eruption at this stage”.

And it’s not just celebrities who are urging the elements to do their stuff, it’s every day people and in particular the online community. Their spokesperson, @rainbowguy_8554 said “We want to do our bit too and show our support for the thousands of people who will tragically and painfully die, not forgetting the even greater number of people whose lives will be shattered forever. We’ve got Facebook groups to set up, Twitter avatars to shade in various opacities of a defined colour and blog posts to write so we can compete with one another to see who cares more. Don’t leave us hangin!”

Meanwhile, reports that a 7.9 earthquake had hit Dublin were greatly exaggerated when it turned out to be Senator Eoghan Harris falling over his own ego.

The Fine Gael leader was in pensive mood after today's meeting

Under-pressure Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny today secured the backing of his party after the fall-out from the resignation of high profile TD, George Lee.

Serious questions had been raised about Kenny’s ability to continue as leader but after a meeting at Fine Gael HQ this afternoon senior party members came out in support.

“Enda Kenny is completely adequate to bring this party towards the next election”, said Gay Mitchell, while Michael Ring said “There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that the current leadership of the party is completely passable”. Others described him as ’satisfactory’, ‘quite good indeed when compared with someone else who would be clearly worse at it than him … like a sleeping tramp’ and ‘averagely fair’. It has received a reasonable response from party members, one of whom told the Irish Sentinel “This is requisitely tolerable, which is as much as Fine Gael needs at this moment in time”.

It’s an important victory for Kenny who would have faced a challenge to his leadership from that beardy bloke, the one with the foreign name who’s always on the radio and looks like he was dropped on his head as a kid and Ireland’s only Jew, Alan Shatter.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that last minute attempts to prevent George Lee from leaving the party included the offer of a front bench seat, more input into the party’s economic strategy and even a last ditch promise of Lucinda Creighton or Olwyn Enright as his concubine. Lee, however, was not for turning and is said to be considering an offer from RTE Light Entertainment to front its new Sunday ethical dilemma show, Abortion or Mong.

Some of the leading figures from the online world are arriving in Ireland to take part in the Dublin Web Summit, which gets under way later today.

He moves away from the mic to breathe in

More than 400 people are expected to attend the event at Trinity College this evening. Across Ireland web enthusiasts are frantically freeing up enough space on their iPhones so their voicerecorder app won’t run out of space as they tape the proceedings. While many are looking forward to the speech by the founder of Craiglist, a classifieds website through which one can buy and sell almost everything, including orphans, body parts and sculpted turds, it’s the arrival of some of the web’s most well known characters that is expected to bring 64bit joy to the audience.

“When I first got the call I thought to myself, ‘Ireland? Why would I want go there?’”, said Tron Guy, “but the promise of a slap up meal in the Little Caesar’s of my choice and two nights in the Skylon was too good to pass up”.

“I can’t wait, this is gonna be awesome”, Leeroy Jenkins told the Irish Sentinel. He will appear on stage a few moments before he is scheduled to do so. Practical demonstrations will take place too, with TV star McGyver on hand to show how to get millions of hits from just 2 girls and one cup.

Musical entertainment for the evening will be provided by Numa-Numa Bloke covering Chocolate Rain while a surprise guest appearance from Rick Astley has not been ruled out.

To add some local flavour proceedings there will be a Q&A with drunk guy in a shopping trolley, Twink and Jedward teaming up to do an updated version of Zip up your Mickey, while Imelda from Athlone will demonstrate the manageable size of Apple’s new iPad by inserting one in her gowl whilst having a convict kiss her back better than what her boyfriend does.

However, organisers are said to be ‘disappointed but understanding’ at the cancelling of his appearance by Goatse due to ’severe rectal bleeding’.

There were angry scenes in Dail Eireann this afternoon as the opposition labelled the government ‘a bit shit, really’ in the light of new unemployment statistics.

Aunt Sally was in agreement with Brian Cowen

The latest live register figures show that almost every single person in Ireland is now unemployed but Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the country was being ‘led in the right direction’. To a cacophony of heckling, whistling and some contemplative swearing from Paul Gogarty, Mr Cowen said “You’re looking at it all wrong. Of course if you take the facts in isolation then they look bad. Hundreds of thousands employed. Violent crime increasing dramatically. Houses being reposssessed. Social decline. All of these things look bad but nobody thinks of the positives.

Sure, more people are unemployed but the rate of people becoming unemployed is slowing by up to 0.0003% per month. That’s progress in anyone’s language and let’s not forget that the more people there are unemployed the more jobs there should be for everyone else. And as for crime, there’s a little thing some of us with a bit of vision like to call ‘the future’. How can we dramatically improve crime figures if they don’t get worse first?”

Cowen was backed by Tánaiste Mary Coughlan who said “Oh aye, whatever Brian said is what I think. He’s a wee charmer, isn’t he?”

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore pulled no punches, saying “This government is so clueless you can put that Ray Foley from Today FM in charge and things would improve. Sure, he might be a sub-par, thinks he’s funny but really isn’t, Chris Moyles copycat but I bet he’d get off his zany arse and do something about the crisis this country is facing”.

Having been pummelled by Gilmore, the Taoiseach then faced Enda Kenny, who had the perfect opportunity to deliver the knock out blow but once against spent so long stammering and trying to add a soupçon of cutting humour to his riposte that everyone had gone home by the time he finished.

Things might be bad in the public sector, but spare a thought for the assholes whose job it is to vomit nauseating slogans into your mind – advertisers. Things are so bad that new outdoor ad stealth-megalith, Bravo Advertising, has taken to advertising itself.

Advertising about advertising – normally the preserve of dreadfully sub-standard national broadcaster Newstalk – has taken this turn for the post-modern more out of necessity than any self-referential insight.

Bravo boss-man Meredith Hennessy explains:

“People need something to lift them – what better than upbeat outdoor ads?”

Hennessy went on to outline the rationale behind his ads about his ads.

“It’s meaningless without being clever. Imagine a paper that said it was the last word in print – and you can have that for free!”

But before you could say, ‘run these cunts down with the props from Mad Max 2’, Bravo Advertising were hit with a law suit for their use of the word ‘last’. Today FM lawyers have served notice declaring their ownership of the word ‘last’ in order to top-load their programme names in some sort of empty theme that starts nowhere and makes zero progress.

The real news from Today FM however is that super-bland, if likeable, easy-listening Canuck jock Alison Curtis has been drop-kicked to the milkman shift from her 10-midnight slot. The Today FM Station Director, whose name is coincidentally not an anagram for ‘Denis O’Brien’s cum receptacle’, said:

“I guess she can carry on liking every tune in the world from 5am to 7am.”

Curtis - once unheard of, soon to be unheard

Meanwhile U2 front man Bono has announced plans to masturbate in space. The NASA-funded project aims to ascertain if the raw genetics of self-importance can compete against the classic Newtonian staples of galactic power such as gravity and light.

The football world was rocked yesterday as Scottish giants Celtic signed an unknown Dublin amateur just as the transfer window was slamming shut until the summer.

Keane celebrated his move to Parkhead in typical fashion

Robert “Robbie” Keane, from Tallaght in South Dublin, signed a 6 month deal with the club with the view to a permanent move in the summer. Speaking to the Irish Sentinel this morning Keane explained exactly how the move came about.

“Well, I was up in the Square just blemmin’ around an’ lookin’ at the gear in Champion Sports an’ this fella rang me up and told me Celtic were after goin’ in for me an’ that. So I says “Ask me bleedin’ hoop, Spoony”, coz I thought it was me mate Spoony playing the tricks an’ that, but it turns out it was me agent an’ I didn’t even know I had one.

He says “Robbie, Celtic want ya. They’re offering £100,000 a week and all the training gear you can carry in a holdall”. I didn’t even have to think twice. I went straight home, packed up me xBox, me JayZ CDs and me trainers, and hopped on the first flight to Glasgow. I can’t believe it!”.

A Celtic spokeman said “We believe the signing of this young man will help us catch those dirty protestants in the league. Obviously he’s a fantastic talent and the fact that he already has every Celtic jersey, home and away, for the last 12 seasons made him a hugely attractive proposition for us”.

Keane, a lifelong Celtic fan, like 98% of people who spend their days in betting shops, could make his debut this weekend. Up until now he’s been playing for Tymon Rovers in the Leinster Senior League (Sundays), but Keane and Celtic are confident that he can cope with dropping down a few levels to play in the SPL.

We wish him luck.

The Irish media is abuzz with the news that an anonymous blogger has paid an anonymous celebrity an undisclosed settlement in a libel case.

Details are sketchy at the moment but The Irish Sentinel can exclusively reveal the nuts and bolts of the case without naming names. It stems from a blog post made in the summer of 2009 in which the blogger accused the celebrity,  a well-known TV presenter, of being a ‘cunt’.

Irish Blogger "40 Consulate" said to be 'worried like shite' over judge's ruling

The celebrity’s lawyers forced the blogger’s hosting company and ISP to reveal details which identified him and served a writ. The blogger in question refused to remove the post or issue the apology the legal team demanded. The case went before a High Court judge in a secret hearing last month where all the evidence was presented.

The celeb’s legal team provided pictorial and written testimony from doctors, physicians, anatomists and world renowned vagina expert John Terry, who supported his claim that he was, literally speaking, not a cunt. Viewing the evidence on its merits the judge agreed that the absence of a labia, clitoris or torn hymen it was inaccurate for the celebrity to be labelled a cunt.

However, he said in taking the action the celebrity had made it quite clear he was, in actual fact, a cock. Nevertheless, he had to agree that the blogger had libelled the celebrity by calling him a cunt and ordered him to make a ‘reasonable’ payout. The blogger in question has not spoken publicly about the award but told the Irish Sentinel that having to differentiate between male and female genitalia when insulting celebrities is going to ’set Irish blogging back years’.

The verdict is likely to open the door to many more legal actions taken against bloggers, with a list of cases already scheduled including Brian McFadden’s action against pop-culture blog, mulch.ie, where he will attempt to prove his head is not made entirely of shit.