Identification - Irish style.

In Crossmagonagle, County Fanacklereagh, there was a terrible house fire. When the firemen had extinguished the blaze, they found a body in the remains of the bedroom. It was burnt pretty badly.

Because the house belonged to Patrick Flaherty, it was assumed that the body was his but the law demands a positive identification. Patrick had no family left so the morgue called in his two best friends Seamus O’Rourke and Fingal O’Flanaghan.

Seamus went in to the room. The mortician pulled back the sheet. Seamus said: "Jaze! He's burnt pretty bad. His face is all gone. Sure and you’ll have to roll him over".

The mortician rolled him over.

Seamus looked. Said he: "No, no. That’s not Paddy, sure it’s not. That’s some other fella".

The mortician was puzzled by this – who could it be? He brought Fingal in to identify the body.

Fingal took a look at him and said, "Faith! He’s in a terrible state, poor fella. Look at him, all burnt and blackened. There’s no telling who that might be. You’ll have to roll him over".

The mortician rolled him over and Fingal took a quick look. "No," said he. "That’s not Paddy. Sure that’s some other poor fella, so it is".

The mortician said, "Neither you nor your mate could identify him from looking at his face but you both were quite certain that it’s not Patrick after I rolled him over. How can you be so certain?"

Fingal said, "Well, Paddy had two @rseholes."

"What! He had two @rseholes???" said the mortician.

"Sure, everyone knew he had two @rseholes, so they did. Every time the three of us went into town, you’d hear people sayin’, "Here comes Paddy with them two @rseholes...."