BREAKING NEWS: Irish citizens see sun for first time

Irish sunshine

Earlier reports that an apocalypse had struck in Ireland’s Kerry County have proven to be false. This news organisation has since been able to confirm that the large flaming ball in the sky was in fact the sun.

Citizens all across Ireland awoke on Thursday morning to a piercing brightness that led many to believe the world was ending.

“I was so terrified when I first woke up and my wife was screaming,” Paddy O’Paddy said. “I decided to go outside so I grabbed my fiddle and I grabbed my Guinness and I went out the door and, d’yknow what I saw? Blue stuff! Everywhere up above me! I didn’t know where the sky had gone. This strange colour had taken over the lovely grey!”

Businesses across the country were forced to shut because residents were unable to leave their homes due to the brightness.

“I tried to head out to work at the potato factory but I was blinded as soon as I got out the front door,” Killarney resident Fanny O’Flannery said. “I had to squeeze my eyes shut and crawl back inside. I now understand why Bono always wears sunglasses when he’s touring overseas!”

A sudden rush at supermarkets left many stores sold-out of canned goods, batteries and steak and Guinness pies. “People are stocking up in case this goes on for a long time and they can’t leave their homes,” Cork storeowner Connor O’Connor said.

Some adventure-seekers did leave the safety of their homes for the exhilarating experience of lying in a park or on a beach without their shirts on.

“It’s a real buzz to feel the heat on my shoulders,” Leary O’Leary said in Galway. “I was worried that I would just make things even glarier when I took my shirt off but it turns out that orange globe in the sky is even brighter than my skin,” he continued, as he turned an unhealthy shade of pink.

The Irish President, Danny O’Danny, took to the airwaves to try to reassure his citizens. In a nationally-televised address from the stage of a Dublin pub, President O’Connor sang the following message.

“I urge everyone to remain calm during this national emergency. We’ve been through tough periods before – like when it didn’t rain for a week so the leprechauns ran out of gold… and all of Sinead O’Connor’s divorces. Like those times, we will get through this together.”

Photos of the sun in Ireland

To mark this historic event in Ireland’s history, this news organisation has put together a photo essay of the solar devastation.