IF YOU’VE BEEN on Facebook at all over the past few days, chances are you have seen friends sharing this “open letter to ISIS”.
The letter was posted by Irishman Finchie Cova last Thursday and has since garnered over 24,375 shares on Facebook alone.
In the lighthearted letter, the 29-year-old explains to ISIS that Ireland is “here for the craic” and warns them about the repercussions should they invade us.
If any single pub is damaged during your short stay here, we will consider this an act of war!!! And we praise to our God Arthur, we will strike down on you with great vengeance and furious anger on those who attempt to destroy our drinking patterns during a time of crises!
So ISIS its good to meet you. Do yourself a favour and us, stay where you are. You don’t want to come here, were not bothered with the issues you have. But if you do, we will beat the shit out of all of you using mammies wooden spoon, kilkenny hurlers and the bouncers from the copper faced Jack’s.
(You can read the letter in its entirety here.)
Since then, the letter has gone international and been picked up by the likes of Buzzfeed, The Independent, The Lad Bible and Metro.
In other words, it’s a bona fide internet sensation.
So, what prompted Finchie Cova to write the letter?
He tells DailyEdge.ie that he was inspired to write it after seeing Ireland included in ISIS’ supposed “global coalition against the Islamic State”.
After seeing a video that ISIS had names Ireland in the “Coalition of Devils,” I decided to rip the absolute piss out of it as best I could.
And it was soon apparent that it had gone down a storm on Facebook.
At the time I posted it, I was chatting to my mate Tony on Facebook chat about it and he said, “This could be big.” I was laughing because as I wrote him back it got, like, 20 shares and I was like, “Double that and I’ll be happy.” 1 hour later it hit 1000 shares.
It was 9000 shares by 10pm that night. The following day the newspapers and other social media websites got hold of it and it exploded!
Cova was so inundated with messages on Facebook that he had to set up a public page as his inbox was “jammed with over 100 messages an hour”.
Soon it was all over the internet — something Cova found quite surreal.
I read Buzzfeed and The Lad Bible every day, it’s the most shared website on my timeline. When they picked it up it got really insane! I received a shed load of mail after that too, some from as far away as Alaska!
Among the people who have apparently gotten in touch?
A survivor of the recent attacks in Paris.
I was chatting to a girl who was at the Eagles of Death Metal gig, she lost her friend there. She was telling me she read it on Buzzfeed and even though she did not get the Irish references, she knew what I was trying to do — to make light of a bad situation and change perspective.
Since the open letter blew up, the comedian has set up a public Facebook page and tells DailyEdge.ie that he intends on pursuing writing.
I think I will. Especially if it changes peoples perspective on how we look at the negative things in the world. We all need a bit of fun in our lives, right? Time to laugh again.
