‘I urge you all – standing here, in the People’s Pork – to remove your masks!’

The People's Pork in Dún Laoghaire is rammers and there's, like, a definite tension in the air? You can see that even the Gords are nervous.

I can hear drunken shouts of, “Why don’t you fock off back down the country?” like my old dear in the restaurant in Brown Thomas every December 8th. “You sprout-eating clods!”

And, meanwhile, my old man is doing what my old man does best – listening to the sound of his own voice in three-figure decibels.

He’s holding a megaphone to his mouth and he’s going, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have been duped! We have been taken in by a plot to divest us of the fundamental human rights that were fought for – however misguidedly – by the patriots of Ireland’s proud past! We have been rendered prisoners in our own homes!”

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Helping hand: Initiative to help mothers in direct provision

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When a ‘good father’ decides to kill his whole family

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In the navy: Strong gin from Bertha’s Revenge will give you sea legs

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I haven't seen this many South Dublin people in masks since the night we accidentally ended up at an Eyes Wide Shut porty on Ulverton Road

And suddenly, behind the masks, you can hear the low buzz of people tutting, going, “The whole thing’s ridiculous at this stage!” and the general hubbub of people being – as they say in this port of the world – up in orms.

"We are moving into our second year of living under mortial law!" he goes. "We, the people, are being subjected to a level of control and repression that has never been experienced before in all of human history and we have not only submitted to it willingly, we have done so on the understanding that it is in our best interests! To be told where we can go, how we can worship, who we can see, how we can love!

"And, like dutiful sheep, we have gone along with it all! We have cut our social contacts down to only our closest family – our interactions with the outside world restricted to cloud-based, peer-to-peer, video-conferencing platforms, which they can switch off – and will switch off – when they deem the time is right!"

Sorcha turns around to me and goes, “The atmosphere is getting ugly.”

I’m there, “Yeah, no, he’s certainly whipping the crowd up alright.”

"Maybe I'll shout something," she goes, "to invite people to consider, like, the counter orgument?"

“Which is?”

“That lockdowns do actually work if properly observed.”

“I don’t think you should shout that.”

“Why not?”

"Because this isn't Mount Anville running rings around Muckross College in the All-Ireland Debating Championships. This is, like, real life, Sorcha – as in, like, actual?"

“Look at us!” the old man goes. “Look at the person to your left! To your right! Behind you! In front of you! Do you recognise him? Do you recognise her?”

He has an actual point. I haven't seen this many South Dublin people in masks since the night we accidentally ended up at an Eyes Wide Shut porty on Ulverton Road. Yeah, no, Sorcha somehow managed to miss the creepy vibes given off by a dude who was on her Renewable Energy and Environmental Finance course in the Smurfit Business School, until we'd been at the party for 20 minutes and a woman dressed as the Pope tried to set fire to my chest hair with a Zippo.

"They have ordered us to cover our faces," the old man goes, "with masks of non-woven material, to rob us of our individuality! To steal from us that which makes us unique as human beings! So I urge you all – standing here, in the People's Pork – to remove your masks!"

"Nooo!!!" Sorcha roars. "Laboratory studies have shown that masks are up to 95 per cent effective in blocking the transmission of pathogens shed in respiratory droplets! Plus, you can still assert your individuality by creating one of, like, your own design?"

But it's no good. The old man has whipped the crowd up into an actual frenzy. They stort literally peeling off their masks while he goes, "That's it! Breathe! Breathe in that clean air they would have you believe is filled with poisons! Now, ladies and gentlemen, let us send a message to the cabal of lizard people who have taken over Dáil Éireann and their vole king, Jeff Bezos, that we are not prepared to put up with it anymore! Ladies and gentlemen, let us morch. . .on Leinster House!"

It'll tell you something about the mood of the crowd that no one objects to the idea of actually walking into town – and I know people from Killiney and Dalkey who quite literally drive to their own front gates to collect their mail.

“Quick!” Sorcha goes. “Let’s lock them in!” and before I can try to talk sense into her, she’s hared off in the direction of the Upper George’s Street gate with the intention of, like, slamming it shut and holding three- or four-hundred people prisoner.

Unfortunately for her, the old man leads his supporters out through the Marine Terrace gate, which forces Sorcha to come up with a new plan.

“Let’s get in the cor,” she goes, “and we can head them off outside Meadows & Byrne.”

I’m there, “Sorcha, this is, like, madness”, except I know there’s no point in trying to talk her out of it.

Ten minutes later, we're standing at the bottom of Marine Road as the crowd comes towards us, the old man at the front with a giant, hippo turd of a cigor wedged between his teeth.

Sorcha runs out on to the road and goes, “Chorles, you have to stop this!”

And he’s like, “Who’s that?”

"It's Sorcha," she goes, "as in, like, your daughter-in-law?"

"Oh, I'll not be stopping anything!" he goes. "Not until they stop sundering our economy and curtailing our personal freedoms to try to force us to take a vaccine that will allow them access to our innermost thoughts."

“You’ve lost your mind, Chorles! You’ve lost your actual mind!”

But, as we pass Scrumdiddly’s, Sorcha suddenly stops walking. She’s like, “Wait!” at the same time throwing her orm across my chest.

I’m there, “What’s wrong?”

“My phone just beeped,” she goes, “to tell me we’ve reached the edge of our 5k limit,” and all we can do is stand by helplessly as the old man leads his supporters in the direction of town.

He looks back over his shoulder at us and goes, "I think you'll find you're the one who's lost her mind, Sorcha!"