Double trouble — Alison Healy on conspiracy theories

Imagine my surprise when I saw an online headline offering the following: Top 10 Conspiracy Theories Involving Clones.

What on earth is going on in Clones, I wondered, and how did this sleepy Co Monaghan town generate one conspiracy theory, let alone 10?

Is Elvis alive and working in the chip shop there, perhaps? Or maybe Shergar is living his best life in a clover-filled Clones field, being hand-fed by Lord Lucan? Although the horse would be 45 by now, which is more than 100 in human years, so that’s not very likely. Could it be that a Clones person discovered that flat 7Up doesn’t actually cure everything and is merely the biggest ever conspiracy foisted on Irish children? And that’s a brave claim when you are talking about Irish parents – the people who convinced generations of children that if they made a weird face and the wind changed, they would be left like that forever. Yes, the same people who told us that if we swallowed chewing gum it would stick our guts together and eventually kill us.

Surely Barry McGuigan must feature in at least one of the conspiracy theories, given that he is the most famous son of Clones? I eagerly clicked on the link to see if the boxer was implicated in the town’s cover up of a UFO landing on The Diamond. Did he have a cousin working in NASA who could conclusively prove the moon landing was a big old scam? The truth was far less exciting. The article was offering ten conspiracy theories involving clones, not Clones. The website’s decision to capitalise the C had thrown me, and any other Irish person who read it, into confusion.

Taking a brave stand – John Mulqueen on women and politics

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Blowing a Gaskin – Frank McNally on gasconades, gasúns, and Ireland’s Bay of Naples

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In the long run – Alison Healy on the bizarre Olympic marathon of 1904

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Valour invalidated – Frank McNally on a mysterious Irish anti-hero: the “Great Gaiscí”

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But who knew there were so many conspiracy theories involving clones? They all boil down to the same premise. A famous person has been dead for years but nobody knows because he or she has been replaced by a lookalike. Wake up sheeple! We are surrounded by dead celebrities. Apparently, Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966 on his way home from the recording studio and the remaining Beatles were so worried about their careers that they replaced him with Scottish orphan Billy Shears. Poor Miley Cyrus was eliminated by Disney and replaced with a more compliant teenager when she went from being the clean-cut Hannah Montana to the wild party-girl who was prone to stripping off and swinging from a wrecking ball. Eminem was killed in a car crash orchestrated by the Illuminati so that he could be replaced by a clone who would encourage young fans to become slaves to the New World Order. And on it goes.

Of course, we’ve had our own version of this in Ireland for many years now. No, Michael D is not a clone, elevated to the presidency by a shady cabal of blood-drinking lizard people to hypnotise us with his mystical words into worshipping Bill Gates. I’m thinking of the theory that Fungi the dolphin died many years ago, but he was bringing in so many tourists that fake Fungis were drafted in to replace him. There was a conveyor belt of fake Fungis lining up to audition for their moment in the spotlight. However, that theory crumbled when Fungi disappeared. Or maybe the stress of living under a false identity eventually got to the fake Fungi and he fled to more obscure waters. And the other fake Fungis had a collective existential crisis and realised that they did not want to live a lie for the rest of their lives. Sounds plausible.

The conspiracy theorists in Pakistan don’t waste their time on dolphins. No, they like to focus on Malala Yousafzai, who mustn’t have suffered enough by being shot in the head by the Taliban. The theories centre around the claim that she is a spy and the CIA shot her to discredit the Taliban. Some even believe she was shot by Robert De Niro who was posing as a homeopath from Uzbekistan. The CIA must have seen him in Meet the Parents and believed he’d be perfect for that operation.

I, for one, prefer to engage in conspiracies of mirth and good cheer. Christmas is the ideal time for that kind of carry-on but there are some sad conspiracy theorists out there who also claim that the festive season has perpetuated the grandest worldwide conspiracy of all time – the existence of Santa Claus. Now that’s a step too far. If it’s a choice between believing that Elvis is still alive and working in a chip shop, and Santa Claus is fake, I say let Elvis bring on the battered sausages.