I took a stroll down to the pub yesterday.

Herself is not too well, and she wanted a sleep and I was fired out of the house.

Down in the pub we got talking about Easter traditions. The main consensus was that there weren’t any. Most people just get tanked up on Saturday to make up for the Good Friday Drought, and then spend Easter moaning about hangovers and eating chocolate.

So we decided it was time to start a new tradition. But what?

Some places have a tradition of rolling eggs down a hill, and this seemed like a good idea. But we had eaten all ours and there weren’t any left. So we had to think of something else. Then someone spotted The Prat half dozing in a corner of the lounge.

The Prat fancies himself, and has declared he is going to run in the next election. He reckons he is going to be the new Taoiseach. In fairness, he couldn’t be worse that the existing one, but he still isn’t called The Prat for nothing.

We went over to him and nudged him awake.

“We would all like you to represent us. We are all agreed”

His face lit up. He almost sobered up in his excitement.

“Jayzus lads. That’s great. I’ll sort out the crime and the potholes in the road and everything. I’ll do anything for yiz”.

So we brought him out to the Sloping Meadow at the back of the village and pushed him off.

He rolled very well. He was still floppy after the drink so he rolled in a fairly straight line. That was unfortunate, because he went straight through the clump of nettles and thistles half way down. He yelled a bit, but it was all part of the fun.

Unfortunately we forgot about the slurry tank at the bottom of the hill. The Prat scored a direct hit and went straight in. We stood around for a bit but none of us was willing to go in there. We discussed it for a while and decided that this was a good tradition, and that we’d do it with any would-be politician who turned up in the area. And what’s more, we wouldn’t fence off the slurry pit, as it added to the sport.

We decided to call it “Prat Rolling” in memory of its first victim contestant.

We all went off home then, happy in the knowledge that we were at the birth of a new tradition that would probably last for hundreds of years.