When informed of this  fact by The Sentinel  the pseudonym shriekingly responded: ‘Fuck, I am being fucking silenced! Yeah, I know they could read me in a fucking reader, or fuck forbid, at home, but people have fucking rights! The fucking right not to work! The fucking right to be outraged by the injustices of this sick world. Outrages such as the shooting down of an innocent raving lunatic, the murder of a rugby player but not of a plumber, and the terrible wonderfulness of a Jennifer Warnes gig. They also have  the fucking right to feel they have addressed these injustices merely by leaving a thoughtfully sycophantic comment on my blog .’

An artist's impression of our brave blogger bending to his task

When pressed on who he thought might be responsible for this outrageous censorship, the figuratively masked maverick refused to be drawn, although he was heard to mutter something about a popular cigarette brand.

A source close to this century’s most courageous scribe was more forthcoming: ‘All signs point to a conspiracy of  Zionists, Muslims and PC World cunts.’ he said, before covering his mouth with his hand and giggling guiltily. ‘We believe there are also devilish Dublin media elements at work. The hand of golfers is also to be seen. And a worldwide cabal of those who think that perhaps Limerick may not be the greatest place on Earth.  And yeah, before you say it, we know that some companies block all Wordpress and Blogger sites, but that’s like, irrelevant, man. The Second Coming is being prevented from coming. This cannot be allowed to happen. We, His devoted followers, are taking steps. Soon His Message will be ejaculated all over the internet and only those that  cannot be arsed doing their jobs to the full extent of their contracts will be saved.’

What form this final sticky Message will take was being kept under close wraps by both our source and Our Messiah, but rumours are rife that it will involve a stinging, obscenity strewn diatribe on the poor customer service that He recently experienced in His local Spar.

From all corners of the country bloggers of all shapes and sizes converge on Dublin to drink pints, tell jokes about UNIX and swap Wordpress upgrade tips. Secondary to this is an elaborate awards ceremony, hosted by popular radio presenter and former TD for Dublin South-Central, Rick O’Shea.

Mullet has challenged Declan Ganley to a duel. As yet Ganley has not repsonded.

Already preparations are underway for the 2009 show with a change of venue and, indeed, a change of city. This years awards will take place in Cork, home of the founder and country music singer Damien Mullet. He told the Irish Sentinel “People have said it’s great that I’m bringing the show to Cork, the real capital of Ireland, and that I’m doing my bit for Corkonian rights, but it goes much deeper than that.

It’s all to do with handiness. After this year’s show I can just grab a taxi and go home. As you might imagine a taxi from Dublin each year costs a fortune”.

But with excitement building amongst the blog populi a dissenting voice has emerged. Hank Scorpio, Libertas spokesman, has called on people to vote against the Irish Blog Awards. He said “So what is in this ‘awards show’ that is so objectionable? It grants extensive powers to the Irish Blog Awards with no real means of holding accountable those taking over the power. The Irish Blog Awards will have extensive power over key areas Irish blog life. In some of these they are even granted exclusive control and in others they will have the ability to write Irish blog legislation.

In fact, it is hard to think of any major function of blogging in which the Irish Blog Awards cabal would not have power over if the Irish Blog Awards goes ahead. For the future of Irish blogging people should vote ‘no’.”

The move has been met with widespread condemnation across the Irish Blogging scene apart from the blogger who likes everything who said “I can see his point of view. Yes, the Irish Blog Awards is great, and yes, it’s my absolute ambition to win one but Libertas won’t follow me on Twitter if I go against them so I’m saying that we should acknowledge how great the awards are and give full props to Damien Mullet but at the same time we should vote ‘no’. It’s easy being me”.

It’s not the first controversial incident to emerge from the Irish Blog Awards. In 2006 blogger Twenty Major sent a henchman who, unbeknownst to many, released a pheromone into the audience which would ensure he won awards for the next two years. His evil plan was revealed in his 2008 autobiography ‘My life as a cunt’, before his enforced retirement due to old age.

And in 2007 fourteen audience members were gunned down in cold blood by a Limerick gang who took their fancy dress just that one step too far.

It’s a far cry from the bitter, tired ranting that spews from the keyboards of the country’s most prominent keyboard warriors but Bernard Byrne is unapologetic about his approach. Speaking to us via telephone he claimed it was about time Irish blogs stopped being a platform for hate and petty sniping and instead focussed on the good things in life.

“Why should blogs only be used to fuel the dark side of life?”, he asked. “There’s so much wonderful stuff in this world of ours. Such beauty, wondrous light and the most amazing people who are so generous with their time. We should embrace them and leave the boring, angry pontificating to those people whose lives are obviously bereft of goodness. I feel sorry for them, semi-colon, small letter o, close bracket”.

Ion, like a lion in Zion. Irish blogger positively charged.

Byrne, whose posts include theories on why ebony and ivory can live together in perfect harmony, went on to say “I know many people will think ‘Hey, what are you being so positive about?’, but that’s just the kind of person I am. I see the bright side in everything. If a doctor told me tomorrow I had cancer I’d realise that it was merely life opening up new experiences to me, ell-oh-ell. If I were in a restaurant and I found out my steak was gone off and had maggots on the inside I’d be thankful that I got a glimpse of the maggot life that I would never have had otherwise. You cannot enjoy life unless you can appreciate the magnificence of every situation, person, place or thing, colon, hyphen, capital D”.

But others are not convinced, saying that what Byrne is doing is harmful to blogging. One of Ireland’s top bloggers, who asked to remain anonymous, said “We have spent years building up our curmudgeonly ways and now this chap wants to come along and flipping ruin everything. It’s a blooming disgrace is what it is and I’d like to see some kind of examination system introduced so twits like him can’t just come along and call themselves bloggers. If we don’t introduce some kind of blinking apprentice system then it’s all going down the tubes, mark my words”.

This is the first time anybody has introduced any positivity into the Irish ‘blogosphere’ since the demise of the fabled Blogtrottah, a supposedly satirical and cynical website devoted to celebrity culture but which was, in reality, a Unix powered celebration of the best of Irish political and media life. Perhaps now the scene is ready for something that isn’t morose and petulant and with not so much a chip on its shoulder as a 10kg bag of Kerr’s Pinks.

The final word goes to Byrne, who took time out from writing a post about how brilliant other blogs are, even the ones he claims not to like, to tell us “If you can feel a wind blowing through Irish blogs it is not a sour, poisonous cloud like the ones we have had to endure for so many years. This is a zephyr, a warm mistral of enlightenment. As that wonderful rock band The Scorpions would tell us, this is a wind of change, pointy bracket, asterisk, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark, are-oh-eff-ell”.