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The Brotherhood had to weather a couple of tough years of Pandemic and rebellious/heroic trips to Achill to ensure that the continuum of consecutive trips to Achill would not be broken. 2022 was the year that was like the good ole days. Everyone on the trip was there to have a good time.
An early arrival on Thursday allowed some of the troops to settle in to what should have been a peaceful night on the Island. However, the troops don’t do peaceful and a little chaos is par for the course. After some soft pints on Marty’s, our Kitchen expert, vital in the enemy territory, invited the early arrivals down to the Beach house for some food. Now, nobody can say no to that. The Chili Con Carne was pre cooked and only needed heating up. The pot was well ravaged and smiles were abundant and the music playing began. Everything was going swell until it came to the Harry Styles song!. An innocent enough question was asked, an honest answer was given, and within seconds ‘The Fellowship of the Chili-Con-Carne’ was in bits with threats being made and counter threats. One of the troops turned Green, and stormed off, glancing back at a Kitchen full of joy and realizing that enough sips were had and it was time for the leaba.
That should have been the end of the drama, but more was to follow. The dancing troops, having danced off some of the Chili arrived back to their base. To their horror, one of the tallest members of the troupe had misplaced the key. They were locked out. They quickly realized that they could wake up the disgruntled one to open the door and they did all but break through the window to wake him. His luck was not in and he was not happy with the tall one. Rule one, don’t loose the keys.
Friday was a fine day and the Troops did a hike across the Island. One of the longer Hikes that they undertook over the years and the views were breath-taking. Of course this led to dehydration and this needed to be remedied immediately. One of them over did this and paid a high price later that night and was barely able of the bus the next day. Everyone else held their own nicely.
On Saturday, The troops put in a successful Tour of the Island and for some reason took the long way around to soak up the beauty of the Island. The brotherhood always follows strict protocol and the new COTY had to be elected on tour. It was a very complicated vote, but we were lucky to have Elon Musk’s business analyst with us to guide us through the election process. Possibly the most entertaining hour ever had on the Island as he graded each candidate with his gruelling psycho analysis of each one. Nobody was left undecided at the end of the presentation and even the locals decided to get in on the voting. It came down to a single vote at the end. Munster Hurling has nothing on COTY elections!
With the exodus of the entertainment crew on Sunday the troops are left to fend for themselves in the hostile hangover environment of Sunday surrounded by hard core Achill goers. For some the weekend ends on Sunday morning but for others it only really peaks on Sunday night. Allegedly, our quiet leader enjoyed ‘breaking free’ on Sunday night and had marks to show for his effort the following day, one of our veterans did not have the heart to mention it to our leader for fear of reprisal, as they enjoyed a drink in Marty’s the next day. Leading from the front of the battlefield always inspires the troops. Meanwhile our youngest trooper was having great difficulty with a Pizza. How hard is it to have a slice of Pizza? Even these little luxuries become logistical nightmares when the Troops are on an expedition.
All in all it was a great weekend and the Brotherhood tidied up and left all in order looking forward to the next one. Some refreshments were had in Dodge to recount the adventures of the weekend and commit to memory some stories that will need to be told at Achill 2023.
