Tearful Provos bid farewell to arms

Disarming news of the Provisional IRA's plan to abandon its "armed struggle" was today met with emotions ranging from indifference to general disinterest. Fresh from serving a 12-year stretch, Haddock-lover Sean Kelly delivered a measured and thoughtful response to the news: "It's not as it used to be, so it isn't. We, sorry, they (the IRA) just can't compete anymore, to be sure. The new generation of hardcore Republicans simply hasn't arrived, like. Kids just don't go outside to chuck rocks at soldiers and set things alight anymore, all they care about is gaming, iTunes, MSN Messenger and hacking into the internet machine aye, so they do. This latest one-upmanship from those Muslim chaps is the final nail in the coffin of the IRA, we could have really done without them besmirching the good name of terrorism, to be sure, so you are."

Known as The Shankill Bomber for having blown up a fishmongers in 1993 which killed nine innocent people, plaice-fancier Kelly went on to suggest that even the traditional fertile sectarian recruitment ground of supporters of Celtic Football Club had dried up in recent years. "The rot began to set in when Graeme Souness signed Mo Johnston for Rangers. Since then it's been a revolving door of Catholics, French, Italians, Dutch... they don't even seem to grumble about signing black players these days, like. I suspect I've got more Protestants in my family than Rangers have playing for them, so I have. They moved the goalposts on that and I blame the British Government for allowing it to happen, so I do, to be sure."

The outspoken seafood connoisseur continued his press conference by heaping blame on the British school system: "Education has been allowed to fall by the way-side, so it has. We, sorry, the IRA attempted to embrace the technology of the internet machine in an effort to reach out to a new generation of members but the kids these days can barely read so all the resources the IRA put into their Macromedia Flash website were wasted, so they were. Now all Catholic kids want to do is go out and happy-slap old people and nick whatever they can get their hands on down the shops with their Protestant chums. It was all so different in my day, so it was," said the rapidly unravelling and emotional former lag.

"In my day we didn't thieve to support our dreams and visions of a united Ireland free of Protestant invaders, we just sent Gerry over to America to drum up support for the cause and opened Irish-theme pubs all over mainland Britain. Now all we have left is our world-famous craic but, like all Irishmen, I don't like to go on about how great our craic and Guinness is, so I don't," sobbed the former murderer and cold-blooded terrorist before being bundled into a van by men with pixelated faces.

Experts on The Troubles™ claim the IRA has suffered irreparable damage from the huge popularity in gaming consoles and hand-held entertainment devices like Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, himself a confirmed fish lover and owner of a Sega Megadrive, echoed the sentiment declaring: "Sony is to release a new portable Playstation in September and I suspect the Provisional IRA wants to be considered old news by then. It's a simple act of saving face and fading away into obscurity and the annals of history in much the same way Boyzone have."

Martin McGuinness, the one time Provo poster-boy and Vatican heartthrob is understood to have orchestrated the move. Sinn Fein's former chief negotiator, who quit the Provos' seven-member "army council" with Gerry Adams — was in Washington last night preparing to brief junior officials of the Oprah Winfrey Show. McGuinness' love of golf — he owns sixteen golf courses in the Arizona area — and his recent conversion to Islam are said to be behind the decision to disarm. Democratic Unionist Ian Paisley, who has known McGuinness since they were both redcoats at a Butlins holiday camp in Skegness in the late 1960s, was said to be concerned about the developments. "This Government is grovelling to republicans. It is a capitulation," read a confused statement issued on behalf of a distraught Dr. Paisley by The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

During cod-faced Gerry Adams' last holiday to America, interest in the IRA was so low he was forced to resort to an impromptu whisk drive in an Arby's carpark in New Jersey. "Even with the dancing girls, Irish Rovers and free tricolor lollies for the children the event was a bust," said one unimpressed Lutheran onlooker. "Mind you, they couldn't have been expected to have known so many Americans would be at home in front of their televisions watching the final of Pop Idol and it was a simple administrative error that the other half of the carpark had been let out to the Mother's Union at the same time. I hope they don't disassemble the IRA, it's like a British institution. Like crumpets, the Royal Family, the Beatles and Lady Diana," said the man, who refused to be named. Bearded Gerry Adams, who is allergic to anchovies and lives next door to Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, could not be reached for comment last night at his home in Buckinghamshire.

Previously

• Sinn Fein plans fundraising musical comedy
• Sinn Fein fingered in IKEA riot bloodbath
• IRA crime claims derail peace process