Robbed!

Our family was on holiday in the bungalow my father and his best friend, Aidan Creedon, built in Magheramore, Co.  Wicklow.
The Boulders, our home in Dundrum, was unoccupied and quiet.

Late one night, two burglars broke into the house. Not wanting to switch lights on, they lit red candles and navigated themselves around the property.

Their loot was, at best, eclectic. It included candlesticks, jewelry, cufflinks and the two children’s sex education books from my Mother’s bedside cabinet.
Staggering out with their haul, they decided to stash their ill-gotten gains under the holly bush in the front garden and made their escape by bike.
A Garda Siochana walking his beat saw one of the miscreants wobbling down the road without any lights. Stopping him, the Guard noticed the red candle wax on the cyclist’s shoes.

‘I’m a butcher and was doing a bit of late night slaughtering.  That, Guard, does be blood’, was the claim.

The Guard wasn’t long out of Templemore, but he knew the difference between hard-set candlewax and animal blood.
He was escorted to Dundrum Garda Station where he asked to explain himself. Not being a hardened miscreant, he eventually came clean and confessed to his night of wrongdoing.

My parents returned to the scene of the crime to be ambushed by Mrs. Smith, our ancient cleaner, who was brandishing a broom above her head as my father walked in the front door. His duck was quicker than Mrs. Smith’s swipe, and he avoided being clattered.