“I’ll Show You Who’s Boss, Bitch!” Alan Kelly Tells Punchbag

LABOUR’S Alan Kelly says he works out regularly and lives off a strict diet of crickets and speaks candidly about his ambitions to one day rule his own planet to WWN’s very own Mary Moron.

Alan’s PA requested we meet at the environment minister’s office in Leinster house, to watch him let off some steam on the office punchbag.

Already sweaty and mid-combo, I am seated facing him as he grounded and pounded the leather bag.

“I’ll show you who’s boss, bitch,” he opened up, eyes glancing over for acknowledgement while overusing ‘fump fump’ noises as he punched. “I’ll beat you beautiful. When I’m finished with you, you won’t know whether to take a shit or get a haircut.”

Mr. Kelly’s PA tells me he does 4-5 minutes on the bag everyday, and is nicknamed ‘the raging bull’ by colleagues.

“Everyone is terrified of him,” she whispers. “He’s so strong.”

Now wiping the sweat from his upper lip, the minister begins stretching in front of me, apologising for “not seeing me there”.

“Feel that,” he said, flexing his right bicep. “Feel it, go on. Feel it. No, squeeze it. It’s hard as a rock. No, not there, there! That’s it. It’s fair strong isn’t it?”

He was right, his right arm was very strong for a politician and I couldn’t help but being impressed by his physique.

“I suppose you have to be big and strong for your job,” I pointed out. “You must be fighting off the women, Alan. How does your wife deal with all this attention.”

“She knows the score, Mare. You don’t mind if I call you Mare, do you?” he asked, before continuing anyway. “You see first, you get the money. Then you get the power and then you get the women. That’s how I’m so successful.”

The Labour party TD began telling me a little bit about his past growing up in Tipperary.

“The parents wanted to name me Alpha Kelly, as in alpha male, but the priest at the time wouldn’t allow it. I was so great in school that I left at the age of 12 to start teaching English in UCC, so I always had an interest in politics. Teaching got me addicted to power and talking down to people. You’re not a politician in Ireland unless you’ve done your time teaching. I truly believe that.”

Now sitting on his back while he did push-ups (he insisted he could do 200 of these), I couldn’t help but notice a slight give in his voice after the 5th one.

“Actually, I should probably get back to working on the election campaign bollocks, now that I think of it,” he then stopped, tapping out with his hand on my foot like a submitting wrestler. “Sure, you can always come back another time and we’ll do the two hundred”.

I agreed it was probably a bad time for pushups, and accepted his rain cheque.

We could have taken time in the interview to discuss a number of problems and criticisms he has encountered in his job as a minister, but admittedly I was distracted by his biceps.

“Don’t forget to say how strong I am in the paper?” he requested before I left. “Did you know they call me the raging bull in here, get that in too… five and a half minutes on the bag”.