The Most Bummable Popstars in Ireland

Feargal Sharkey: third from bottom (ahem) in The Battle of the Bummed.

Well, well, well: it would appear that Ms. Sinéad O'Connor's quest to find a hirsute, middle-aged, leather-trousered bum chum has caused something of a commotion across cyberspace. Apart from the inevitable scurrilous gossip-mongerers affording Ms. O'Connor the oxygen of publicity of which she has been so starved since she tore apart a picture of His Holiness John Paul II live on American television all those years ago, there has also been a pertinent question posed by some of  Ireland's foremost academics; to whit, just how highly does Ms. O'Connor rank in the nation's wank bank?

Shortly before Ms. O'Connor embarked upon her mission to make a complete arse of herself (and rather fortuitously for such cyber-commentators as I), Doctors Patrick Fitzmichael and Michael Fitzpatrick, from the Faculty of Gender Identity, Sexuality and Uphill Gardening at University College Dublin, embarked on a research project to ascertain the desirability of the most prominent figures in the Irish music industry. 

Drawing on years of quantitative research, gender profiling, analysis of the correlation between celebrity and attractiveness, measurement of the physiological changes in students when shown images of their idols, and masses of anecdotal evidence, they came to the conclusion that they "hadn't a feckin' clue"; so, in order not to surrender their mammoth research grant from the Catholic Church of Ireland, they decided to intoxicate as many of the denizens of the Student's Union on free Guinness, then posed to them the following, brilliantly incisive and succinct question:

"Which Irish musician's arsehole would you most like to stick your mickey or tongue into?"

Their paper has just been published, and it is therefore my great pleasure to furnish you with the official list of The Top Ten Most Bummable Popstars in Ireland:

1. Samantha Mumba

= 2. Andrea Corr

= 2. Caroline Corr

= 2. Sharon Corr

5. Sinéad O'Carroll (B*witched)

6. Van Morrison

7. Keavy Lynch (B*witched)

8. Dolores O'Riordan (The Cranberries)

9. Edele Lynch (B*witched)

10. The Late Stephen Gately (but strictly post-mortem)

Mr. Morrison's (perhaps surprisingly) high placing was attributed variously to the enormous degree of respect which he commands within the hearts and souls of Irish youth due to the canon of his work, a subliminal connotation made by the intoxicated students between the act of sodomy and his 1967 hit disc "Brown-Eyed Girl",  and a desire to "make the big arl eejit smile for once in his feckin' life".

As can be seen, Ms. O'Connor failed to make the top 10... or the top 40... or even the top 500. She did, however, register in the bottom five:

13,648. The Late Ronnie Drew (The Dubliners)

13,649. Mary Byrne (slightly less hirsute Susan Boyle clone from "The X-Factor")

13,650. Feargal Sharkey (The Undertones, the Assembly, solo act, Alex Higgins impersonator)

13,651. Sinéad O'Connor

13,652. Chris de Burgh (cunt)

One interesting exchange occurred when one of the only two students who expressed an interest in "bowling from the Pavilion End" at Ms. O'Connor stated that in so doing, he should have to don at least three condoms before consummating the act:

Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick: "Is that 'to be sure, to be sure, to be sure', ha ha ha?"

Student: "No, it's because she's such a fockin' swamp donkey that any actual penile-anal contact between us would cause me such trauma that I'd turn into fockin' stone straight away... where's me fockin' pig?"

I feel unable to arrive at a better summation than that.

Do others wonder if Ms. O'Connor ever in her wildest fantasies imagined being between Feargal Sharkey and Chris de Burgh in the context of being bummed?