History Examination 2005

Peter Hain (aged 11 and five quarters)

A History of Ireland

The history of Ireland is long, complicated and quite divers. In prehysteric times there were stone age men killing dinosaurs with their metal swords but the dinosaurs ran out because of the weather and global warming and too many cars but the men didn’t. The men built big stone circles called stone henges but I don’t know what a henge is. They used them to look at the stars and they lived in them as there were lots of doors. They used flint for every tool and even to make their metal swords. That’s why you find flint everywhere as they always dropped it when they were finished with it as there were no dustbins.

They worshipped the sun, just like my dad and did lots of things until a few hundred years later a man called Saint Columbus was born. He later discovered America but that was hundreds of years later. He wasn’t English but as he had a funny name, he was probably Welsh. He sailed in a ship made from trees and flint to a Greek island off the coast of Scotland and Ireland called Ionos. He found Christianity there and built a monastery. He also went to another island called Lindisfarm but I don’t know what he did there as you can only get there at low tide and all the shops were shut when we went there on holiday.

Lots of things then happened, lots of lots of things happened and the men fought each other just like my mum always says after a good skinful so they were wearing animal skins I think. I don’t mean my mum has a good skinful, she just says it’s medicine. The men fought each other until one day two armies had to fight over a river. The one army was from Spain as it had a William of Orange as its leader and all oranges come from Spain and not Tescos like my mum says. The other army was not the good army and they lost so there was peace except some boys who were apprentices did something but I don’t know what. Maybe they were better at it when the apprentice thing was finished.

I forgot, Oliver Cromwell was in Ireland but he didn’t do much. He did something in Drugeda and he caught King Charles up a tree and fought those men in the funny hats and they wore steel helmets made of silver because they were all shiny. Ireland was in bits called providences and there was Ulster and Hemster and Ginster and Lemster and Connort and Belfast and lots of others I think. There was a king in every providence and the kings were in charge but Cromwell must have fought the kings and somebody lost but I don’t know who.

Everybody in Ireland ate potatoes, I like chips as well. There was a disease that stopped all the potatoes growing and lots of people and lots went to America as they have such nice food there as I found out last year at Disney World but it didn’t look as old as that. Because there were no potatoes, the catholics started fighting the Christians and they fought everybody else and they never stopped fighting until they died as they had nothing to eat. The people who died blamed the British as they had lots of potatoes but they didn’t share them and I don’t like it when people don’t share. I like cheese and onion but you can’t eat them all the time so they had to eat potatoes but they couldn’t so they died. It was sad they had to go to America but they have a celebration every year for Saint Patrick who is the Irish saint and they wear lots of green. Saint Patrick isn’t as good as Saint George as he didn’t fight a dragon, maybe dragons eat potatoes as well.

Nothing much happened between then and the start of the troubles, just a couple of wars but I don’t like wars. Lots of people got killed which is sad but nothing really interesting happened until one day there was a march in Londonderry where lots of people got shot by the army or it could have been paras but I don’t know what they are. My dad says it’s allowed to say it as this was called Bloody Sunday. My dad says that every week so it couldn’t have been that important. There was somebody called the black and tan but my Dad has a tin of each and he uses it to clean his shoes.

The troubles were when the catholics fought the other people because they wouldn’t let them set off their bombs. All the catholics live in a big estate they call the falls road and the rest live on the Shank Hill which is a big mountain in Belfast. The catholics fought the others and there were lots of people killed. Lots of bombs and police and soldiers killed by all the catholics who were fighting. There were people killed in England as well it wasn’t a very nice time. It all finished on Good Friday with an agreement but I can’t remember the name of it. They don’t fight anymore they have a government just like in London they do argue a lot and they talk really funny. There are no more bombs now and its nice and quiet and everybody is happy now even the catholics.

During this time the south bit of Ireland made computers as my dad got a Gateway from there and butter and of course rain. I once watched something called Bally something but there was only one person who I could understand. I think the rest were Welsh which I thought funny. They don’t have a prime minister they have a teashop. I think that’s where they go to make up their minds what to do, a bit like the houses of parliment. I once went to a teashop and had three éclairs! The capital of Ireland is Dublin and it has lots of people living there and a river. Rivers go out to the sea and this one does as well. My uncle went to Dublin and he got arrested but aunty sally still married him. It has lots of hysterical buildings like a famous college and there’s a bridge over the river and a big stadium where they play a funny game with sticks. My daddy said it’s a kids game but they looked quite big to me.

Lots of famous people come from Ireland. Lots and lots of famous people, so many it would take me too long to mention them. Boyzone come from Ireland I think and lots and lots of others.

The things that come from Ireland are computers, butter and grass as it is always green there. I think the Titanic came from Ireland but the iceberg didn’t. They must have cows there as well as the butter comes from them and they must eat the grass. There are lots of things that come from there and so many I could fill pages and pages and pages and lots more pages just telling you what comes from Ireland.

Ireland today is quite a modern country. They have buses and trains and they have motorways but only a few. They are in Urope but we went there and you had to go to Wales first and I thought we were going the wrong way. I couldn’t understand anybody there so I just talked to my mum and dad. I saw lots of hills and mountains and sheep so they must get butter from them as well. The sea was nice but I got stung by a jellyfish and had to sit in a hospital for a long time. They have hospitals as well and I saw lots of Irish Doctors and nurses. At home I’ve been to the hospital there and there are more doctors and nurses there and lots of them are Irish as well but there are more Indian. I like Ireland and I was sick on the ferry twice but somebody cleaned it up for me and mummy could have a drink. She was cross with daddy as he had touched a lady’s bottom but he said he was just being friendly but mummy was very very very cross.

To finish Ireland has come a long way from people running about with sticks but they do play that funny game with sticks now but that doesn’t matter. The Irish people are friendly and always drunk but they do seem happy and they make lots things in Ireland and they must be important as Tony Blair talked at their teashop and they talked for a long time. There are lots of Irish people in America but they aren’t proper Irish they just think they are Irish. I liked Ireland but I wouldn’t like to live there. I can understand my doctor, a Doctor Singh but I couldn’t understand them at all in Ireland espeshully when they were drunk. My dad says that they are all Paddies but I don’t know. I did hear about somebody called doyle but I never met him.

THE END

I tracked down Lardbucket McNasty at the Peckham Hilton. He was having lunch there and a large plate of truffles and brown sauce was on the table. A bottle of Chateaux East Sussex was in the wine cooler and looked almost empty.

“I was totally manipulated,” he told me. “The BNP used me as part of a smear campaign against Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary. They twisted things, they always twist things. There’s one who I only know as RA but he can sure twist things. He can open a pickle jar with his arrse, that’s how much he can twist things” he continued.

“The exam paper I bought couldn’t have been from the real Peter Hain. The date was 2005 and I think our Peter Hain is older than that, even mentally. That, I won’t say it but that Scuzzy McFart had his thumb over the date and yes, I should have checked it but I was just so excited. It just showed a naivety of the situation, a simplistic view that I do associate with the real Mr Hain. I have given up all associations with the BNP. It just distracted people from the real message I was trying to make and the membership fees have gone up three times already. I will not be attending the St George’s Day march, dress smart but casual and boots optional as I feel that there is some sort of political motivation at work although most of the members don’t realise it.” he told me.

“I apologise unreservedly to Mr Hain the politician and to Peter Hain the schoolboy who attends the St Mary’s Protestant School of Quite Early Saints in Dublin, Dublin in Lincolnshire. I no longer play badminton and while I continue watching Millwall, I will be confining myself to just watching the football.” he added.

Asked about his next project, he told me “I’m working on an expose on a woman, who for now will remain nameless but she’s had a rather large hairdresser’s bill for a certain period in time and it does warrant a much closer look. Using all my journalistic skills, I now have access to her hairdresser, her bricklayer, her plasterer and the large team of scaffolders who accompanied her on her husband’s work. She’s a beautiful woman” he added ordering his third bottle of wine. “And she needs to stay beautiful” he added drinking from the bottle. “But at what price?” he asked rhetorically, collapsing into his truffles.