Micháel Martin, 47, last night described as “nonsense” claims that Fianna Fáil had employed a band of ninja to invisibly deliver campaign literature to doorsteps around the country in a bid to avoid ever having to actually meet angry constituents. The Teflon shouldered former Minister of Whatever and Class of 2011 TD voted “Least Likely To Be Taoiseach”, shiftily denied the accusations, branding them “absurd”.
Mother of five Sheila O’ Hagen Fitzpatrick, 33, of the well-to-do Cork suburb of Douglas however, is just one of Mr. Martin’s constituents baffled by the mysterious appearance of campaign flyers in her letterbox in the dead of night. “Oi cud be out on me stoop, loike, pure blazin away till two or tree in tha maarnin, loike and nattin” Ms. O’ Hagen Fitzpatrick is quoted as saying today, “Bat cum tha maarnin loike, der day are, bold as aantin! ‘Tis fierce altogether, loike.”
While taxi driver, Terry Quinn of Swords, 45, in North County Dublin claims to have spotted the silent but deadly delivery service in action. “I’d be cummin off da graveyaard shift, ya know, faar in da maarnin, puttin me key in da daar and oudda nowere like, dese flyers just start whizzin past me eaarr, and land at me fee. I luk up and derr derr scamperin across tha bleedin roof n’ all. Couldn’t believe me eyehz. It juss happind so fast.”
Dr. Harvey Schmidt, 41, author, former campaign trailer and Director of Media Studies at the Portlaoise Institute For Further And Later Education (PIFFLE) goes one further in his recent book on the subject Ninja By Night, Doormat By Day, in which he claims to have nurtured what he calls the Ninja’s Invisible Postal Service (NIPS) through its infancy. “The Mohill/Knockalongford bi-election back in ’06 was a doozie. A fiercely pitched battle that called for something really radical”, Schmidt states in his book, “Our incumbent TD, Paddy “Piles” O’ Shaughnessy, 68 [ed], was deeply unpopular at that time, not to mention inept, flagrantly ineffectual, corrupt and with an almost callous disregard for personal hygiene. He was vile, so a doorstep campaign just wasn’t going to fly”. The way to go, Schmidt decided was with “lamposters, busstop billboards and postbox propaganda”. But how? “Piles” was “morbidly obese and physically unable, and would’ve been battered down the street like cattle on fair day anyhow. So stealth became our secret weapon”. Schmidt admits that the idea of using ninja was a lucky break rather than a well thought out political strategy, but it was a break that bore fruit. “I wish I could tell you that it came to me in a Eureka moment while sitting on the throne, but the truth is it was a classic case of right place, right time. The Ronin had just finished protecting a small fishing village, Rooskey I think it was, just down the road there, from a band of marauders and they were sniffing around for their next project. We met along the campaign trail and it just clicked”, explains Schmidt with a happy nostalgic nod. “Signs, posters, leaflets. Stuff would just appear out of nowhere. It created a real buzz around the campaign, and I really think it was the deciding factor in Paddy retaining his seat, despite an epic level of loathing towards him locally”.
Qi Lin, ?, former head of the Jade Lotus, the umbrella organisation that now oversees NIPS nationwide, conceded as much to me before committing ritual seppeku for breaking his code of silence. “The Jade Lotus”, he told me while bleeding out slowly in horrible agony, was just a “ragtag band of masterless Ronin”, before Schmidt and the frankly flabbergasting win at Mohill/Knockalongford “gave them a sense of purpose once more”. Now dedicated to “the distribution of political pamphleture under the cover of night”, the ninja make their signature services available to the highest bidder. Who their current master was however, Qi Lin was soon too weak to say.
At a press conference this morning Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore, 56, shrugged off suggestions that Labour TD Paddy “Piles” O’ Shaughnessy had recommended the skills of NIPS as far back as 2007. Employing Twitter despite being in a room full of journalists Mr. Gilmore described as “laughable” claims that the Labour Party would ever employ masters of death and carnage “to merely deliver flyers. Let me be clear about this”, he tweeted, “If the Labour Party were in Government, any and all masked and deadly assassins working within the confines of the civil service set about by the previous Government, would be employed and utilised in a manner more beneficial, more viable and more valuable to the People of Ireland, than expertly and invisibly delivering propoganda under the cover of darkness.” When prompted however, Mr. Gilmore declined to elaborate on what that manner might be. Asked to comment on the controversy, wooden Fianna Gael leader Enda Kenny is quoted as saying “Ninjas delivering party flyers? That would be f#*$ing cool”.
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