FlAsH Fiction Honorable Mentions
Poetry
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These four (4) honorable mentions in the poetry category are very diverse and at points, dark, like early FAH sketches. But the authors also show the love, inspiration, and clear admiration of everything having to do with FAH as people who bring so much joy and happiness into the lives of their fahns.
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Anna Stell (Instagram: @cherry768 & Twitter: @AnnaStell5)
Statement of Inspiration: When I read Arms’ statement on Patreon [below], I began to think about memories. Specifically, memories that the lads have built and collected over the thirteen years they have been together. There are so many that you couldn’t possibly take all of them and count them out. That was when I thought, I might not be able to count all the memories, but I can count specific moments, props, jokes, and quotes from their sketches. Along with the inspiration from Arms, I found inspiration I needed to complete the “countdown” from simply scrolling through their sketches on YouTube. Some were more obvious than others, such as Three Drunken Monks. For others, I looked for the smaller references in sketches that fahns would still be able to say, “I know what sketch that is.” There was a lot of counting and recounting (thank you Anne Flanagan and her lightning fast cut scene bits), but it was all worth it.
“There's worth in the days, not measured by likes or shares. Perhaps, as I said to the lads the other day, ‘these are the days, the most fun we'll ever have, the sweet spot.’ It certainly feels like it.” -- Arms
Foil Arms & Hog Countdown
Thirteen Years
Twelve Regional Accents
Eleven Ways to be Late
Ten Things to Enjoy about Winter
Nine Mixed Up Songs
Eight Cure All’s
Seven Cinema Foods
Six Parties
Five Cups before Lunch
Four Anxious Points
Three Drunken Monks
Two Squatters Episodes
One Comedy Sketch Group
Countless Memories
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Leah AKA the Wordy Nerdy
Statement of Inspiration: The cymbal symbolises (yes I do love that word pairing) the often dramatic ending to all their live sketches. It is their silent fourth member who gets one moment in the limelight in each sketch, but for over a year now has been, in all likelihood, stuffed under a messy pile of props. I felt like giving it a voice would convey the longing FAH have to get gigging again, that even their inanimate props are feeling that longing. The poem also speaks to the abruptness in which the touring came to an end, almost as if it was suspended mid clang, with so much more performance left in it, just like FAH must have felt.
A Cymbal in Irons
My clamour has
Frozen vice-like
A captive taut,
Timbre in limbo
Like a muted thrush
Choked with dust
Chirping for nought
My stifled cries
Hide neath piled
Ties and wigs and
bits and twisted
Brac a bric,
Gagging to gig
Again
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Nadine Day
Statement of Inspiration: The inspiration for this Acrostic Poem came purely from the heart and my sincerest love that I have for Foil Arms and Hog. They have helped me through so much over the years with so many things and not just them, but the FAHndom they have created which I have made many friends along the way. The FAHm have always got my back and for that I am eternally grateful! This is my ode to the FAHns and of course to FAH who have kept me going through my darkest days. This poem has a hidden message . . . can you find it?
Irish Comedians Win Girl’s Heart
Lads, lads, lads is what we chant
Overly excited, calm down we can't
Very eager with every Thursday coming
Enchanting us with their acting and beautiful singing
Forever grateful to the lads I am
Our little FAHndom that's becoming a FAHm
I never realised just how big we could be
Like wide open lands and the deepest sea
Attractive, smart, witty and fun
Radio, TV and online they've done
Many memories have been made overtime
So that we can keep enjoying the ridiculous & the sublime
All I want is too see my boys live again
New content every week so I can't complain
Deep down this rabbit hole I have fallen
Helplessly in love, my heart they have stolen
Only now can I see through the fog
Gratitude to the wonderful Foil Arms and Hog
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Caitriona O’Brien
Statement of Inspiration: FAH are masters of creating something out of nothing. A paper hat becomes a knight’s helmet. A butternut squash becomes a guitar. A world is created from dialogue and expression.
I subscribed to FAH’s YouTube channel in 2019, after 4 years of watching their sketches whenever they popped up on my suggested videos. Sandcastles was not the video that made me subscribe but while watching it I had the oddest sensation of déjà vu. In 2008 (probably, my college years are a fuzzy blur) I had seen Baby FAH use a joke, which is now part of the Sandcastles sketch. It made me wonder how it came to be, how the sketch was written. But I put it to one side, as something I’d never know.
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We’re lucky. FAH are so accessible to their FAHns. Back in 2019, I assumed there would be no point in asking. They’d never see the question, they’d never answer. I was wrong. I asked my question, and it was answered extensively in the Patreon Livestream on the 8th of April.
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So, this poem is about those three lads, in a flat in Cork writing one of my favourite sketches. Creating something out of nothing.
Sandcastles
Tell me a story of creation
Tell me of your imagination
Shadowed shabby 2 bed retreat
Whole show to write in a week
With far too much to drink
Too little time to think
Somewhere a flicker
Of inspiration
Became a timber
A foundation
So now a shiver
anticipation
I question, I wonder
I don’t understand
You built a universe
out of sand
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