THERE WERE about 924 television screens in the Lord Lucan bar in Lucan last night, and they were all tuned to the X Factorto watch local boys, John and Edward Grimes, now forever to be known as Jedward, as they were voted through to the next round.
Hundreds of locals, some with babies in their arms, squashed into the bar from 6pm onwards to claim their space for the evening and to roar their support.
'You could kick a football in this place most Sunday nights before the X Factor," marvelled Mary Fagan, staring around at the packed bar.
“And look at it now.” She was in the Lord Lucan with her daughters Jennifer (29) and Lorna (27) and partner Eddie McLoughlin. “I’m only the taxi-man,” McLoughlin stressed, rolling his eyes.
Jennifer’s hair was heading ceilingwards in a Jedward-style quiff. “I did it specially for the night. It took me ten minutes to do it. I’d say the boys need a bit longer to do theirs.”
So the Jedward hairstyle is not just for boys? “Oh no! Look at me! Lots of girls will be looking like this soon.”
"I have a prediction to make," Mary confided. "No matter whether they win the X Factoror not, they will make a fun Christmas single and it will be Number One. It will beat the single of whoever wins the show."
Nobody in the Lord Lucan last night was willing to admit that the Grimes twins might actually win the show, but lots of people think they will get to the final three.
“All the little kids love them,” said Carrie Duncan (17).
“They are nice guys, and they’re really entertaining – but they can’t sing,” Emma Lester (16) pointed out sadly.
“This beats watching it at home on our own,” explains Andrea Malone (23), staring round her with excitement at the crowd.
“We had heard the atmosphere here was amazing,” said her friend, Tara Murphy (22). “The twins live near Superquinn,” they confided. “Just across the road from here.”
“Do you want my honest opinion about Jedward?” asked Robert Dent (18). “I really don’t like them. I think they are a joke. Sure, they can’t sing,” he snorted. Yet there he was, with a group of seven friends, all of them glued to the screens.
Jennifer O’Connell was dying to talk about the famous Lucan twins.
“John and Edward sang for my husband’s 60th birthday party last year. They are friends of my daughter. She was always telling us they were great singers, so we asked them to sing for the party. They sang in our back garden. They were only lovely. I’d say we will have to pay them next time, though.”
Once the results show started at 8pm, the noise levels were so high nobody could actually hear anything from the London studio, other than the crowd in the bar chanting “Jedward! Jedward!
If Lord Lucan himself had turned up last night in the bar that bears his name, the odds are that nobody would have noticed him amidst the Jedward mania that looks likely to continue for as long as Ireland's most famous twins stay in the X Factor.
