Shit love ma x

Taking the turn from Mountjoy Square on to Gardiner Street was my next task. Then I heard it. I felt it. A vibration. A small beep. I pulled my phone from my pocket. The message was from my mother, or 'Me Ma' as she is listed. I'd only talked to her, half hoarse, heart beating quicker than it should have been less than an hour earlier. Just before I did I used the phrase 'hurling heaven' in a tweet. 

To say proceedings took a turn for the worse when the age old rivals returned for battle would be an understatement. An understatement of an understatement. I still hadn't negotiated the turn. Something needed to be written about what I had just witnessed. What would I call it? I read the message from the woman who gave me life. Three words and a letter I'm all too familiar with. 'Shit love ma x'. That'll do.  

It's Dalton not Walton. John Dalton.

For many years I was a fan of comedian Tommy Tiernan. I still am to a degree but in recent times the man who stands up for a living, the man who has offended more Irish people than any other 'funny man' on the circuit has tended to use a lot of foul language in his routine. Unnecessary language in my opinion. Why? That's what I'd ask him if I happened to be standing behind him in the queue in, let's say, Supermac's on Westmoreland Street.

My initial thinking was that it was language the Navan native used everyday so it made no odds to him to bring it on stage. However, not everyone is comfortable with 'potty talk' or 'the language of the snooker hall' as my parents used to refer to it. In hindsight I don't blame them.

So why use it? Why would Tommy Tiernan use it?