Jimmy from Fanore

DieNonne · 27-01-2011 9:26pm #1

I was recently made aware of a "true story" about a man called Jimmy from Fanore. Jimmy lives beside the church in Fanore, he is apparently the scrooge of all scrooges.

As the tale would go, the church couldn't figure out why the ESB was so high, apparently he was stealing the electricity from the church after the ESB cut his electicity off, the same story with the water charges, they church paid high water bills and didn't know why -Jimmy was using the churches water supply. So after Jimmy had no water, people began to wonder how he always had clean clothes (no water - no washing machine) well apparently Jimmy was using the Youth hostels washing machine, the owner caught him in act while he was waiting for the spin course to finish.

Jimmy's petrol tank in his car had aleak, so instead of fixing it he had a canister in his car and fixed a tube from the engine to the canister.

On his way to the carvan park where he wanted to destroy a few caravans (because he had a falling out with the owner) his tractor overturned in the dunes, so since then he's a pedestrian.

Jimmy was sick of the church bells ringing, so apparently he cut the church bell ropes.

His family takes care of him, but when he gets too out of hand, they send him to England, where he continues with his antics.

Now what I really want to know, does Jimmy really exist, or is this just a fake story?

Carry · 27-01-2011 10:48pm

So you read a story on the funnies page in a German newspaper and want to know if the individual in said story does exist?
Very funny.

It's like trudging through Achill Island to find all the characters Heinrich Böll did write about... Try that, and the locals will accommodate you, sort of...

As it happens I'm very good friends with the author of that piece, who actually lives in Fanore and is an accomplished and renowned journalist. As it happens I met quite a few characters over there while visiting said friend and know all the stories and met the people, ok, almost all of them.

If Jimmy exists or not is not the point. It's a description of shenanigans and characters. And if Jimmy as such does exist, this author wouldn't mention his real name. It's a writer's freedom, at least in a funny piece, to summarize different characters and going-ons to make it a funny story and to squeeze it into one person called, well, Jimmy.

There are quite a few Jimmys in Fanore, and elsewhere, btw...
Did you ever read about the German who... ach, that' another story for the funnies... :P

Whoever is interested in the original piece and capable to read German:
http://www.taz.de/1/wahrheit/artikel/1/irlands-rache-fuer-cromwell/