IS THE NEWS getting you down? Current affairs causing a frown? Satirical site The Mire has an alternative angle on the week’s hot topics.

Garda searches foil sinister hydration operation in Slane

Monday, 19 August

A huge garda clampdown succeeded in preventing thousands of people from hydrating themselves at the Eminem concert in Slane on Saturday.

Concert goers were searched and made to surrender bottles of water in case they might drink some.

“We have succeeded in preventing a sinister hydration operation,” a garda spokesman said.

“They took all my water but I don’t blame them,”  a man who admitted drinking up to four glasses of water a day said. “They were saving me from myself.”

Egyptians not convinced Eamon Gilmore can resolve their crisis

Wednesday, 21 August

Egyptians were puzzled today after hearing that Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore would attend a meeting on how the EU could resolve the crisis in Egypt.

“What on earth is he doing there?” a senior figure in Egypt’s military government asked.

“You’re having a laugh,” a supporter of deposed President Mohamed Morsi said. “Sure he can’t even resolve the crisis in the Labour Party.”

A source close to Mr Gilmore said it was unfair to compare  the Egyptian crisis with the much more complicated business of  infighting in the Labour Party.

Laughter everywhere as Howlin says banks should take customers seriously

Thursday, 22 August

Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin provoked widespread hilarity when he said it was very worrying that banks aren’t taking the Financial Ombudsman seriously.

“The least we’d expect is the banks to treat with complete respect the clients who are the citizens of this country,” Mr Howlin said.

“Complete respect? Any respect would be a start,” a customer said.

Mr Howlin may have said other stuff too but no one took him seriously.

Strategic defaulters ‘running out’ of things to buy

Friday, 23 August

Thousands of people are finding it increasingly difficult to keep on not paying their mortgages.

Strategic defaulters are running out of things to spend their money on while they build up mortgage arrears and wait for a  writedown.

“It’s exhausting spending all your money so the banks think you have none,” a defaulter said.

“And we have nowhere to put all the stuff we’ve bought. We’re going to have to buy another house just for storage.”

Ireland in The Bailout Years – a trot through 2009-present day through the satirical lens of The Mire’s Donal Conaty – is on sale now here.

Read previous weeks’ editions of The Mire’s Not the News >