Who is not moved to a righteous wrath by the revelation that University College Galway, now strangely called National University of Ireland, Galway - is permitting only 140 car-parking spaces for students on the campus?
The other 12,600 students will have to walk, catch a bus or even cycle to college. This is the kind of brutal excess which led to the French Revolution. I warn the college president to listen for the sound of Madame Lafarge: knit one, purl one, mes jolies tricoteuses.
The news of NUIG's equivalent to the Tiananmen Square massacre was broken to the student body by Seamus Mhic Giolla Fada, cathaoirleach of the Padraig Peace Process Pearsaigh Cumann of Sinn Féin. "This is the darkest day in the history of infamy in this island since the Famine. Comrades! Mark my words. The hidden hand of the securocrats in the North, intent on wrecking the Peace Process, is behind the assault on our parking rights."
Roger Fitzgerald of Fine Gael was the next to speak. "Yaw, well Oi mean to say, Oi don't know if Oi agree with that, reoight? Oi mean, my Pater's an Ess Sea, and like he loathes you Shinners, but the point is, he bought me a Beamer for Christmas and now Oi've nowhere to put it. It's not fair, is it Emma?"
Eighty girls called Emma, all of them pretty, stood up to agree. While they were sorting out which Emma should address this revolutionary gathering, Fallopia Whynge of the five-strong Constance Markievicz Women's Collective - the NUIG CÚIG - rose, her trusty briar pipe clenched between her teeth. She was wearing a multicoloured jacket, a sartorial affirmation of a woman's right to hues.
"This is the male patriarchy yet again imposing its will on women. We will not tolerate it. This discriminatory policy is yet another attempt to marginalise, demean and degrade women by denying us our parking rights. What next? Are we to be chained to the kitchen and the marital bed, yet again? Sisters - those days are over!" The hoarse roar of approval from her four she-fellows of the NUIG CÚIG was nearly drowned out by the waxwing-like twitters from the four score Emmas as they argued about which of them should speak. Fallopia sat down on the huge piece of ecclesiastical furniture she had dragged in with her, testament to her belief in a woman's right to pews.
"Lyook here, the guys in the rugby club are not too happy about this," declared Ronan Beast, team captain. "Like, say the guys have got these absolutely humungous hangovers, reoight, and we're like, no way are we going to walk to uni. But we'll have nowhere to park. My Paw didn't buy me my Lotus for me to have to leave it half-a-mile from college."
Finally an Emma managed to get a few words in: "I'm like, Omigod, NO WAY, I'm like, Omigod, NO WAY." Another Emma rose: "I'm like, Omigod, NO WAY, I'm like, Omigod, NO WAY." There was a scattering of applause. A third Emma rose. Like the others she was immaculately groomed, with a perfect manicure and eau-de-nil nail-varnish. She fluttered her eyelashes at Ronan Beast. She emphatically did not agree with the first two Emmas. "I'm like, OMIGOD, no way, I'm like OMIGOD, no way."
"Well put, sisters," intoned Fallopia Whynge. "Let us not forget there is a car-equality issue here. We too should be entitled to drive around looking for sexual partners, like our gay brothers. A woman's right to cruise."
Seamus Mhic Giolla Fada rose again. "First the Penal Laws. Then Vinegar Hill. Then the Famine. Then the evictions. Then the 1916 executions. Then the Black and Tans. Then Croke Park on Bloody Sunday. Then internment day. Then Bloody Sunday in Derry. Now this. I'm warning the securocrats that the republican movement will not tolerate these attacks on the Park Process."
Sebastian Grope of the Greens stood up. "Speaking as an environmentalist, giving the staff so many parking spaces and the students so few could be disastrous for the ozone layer. It will lead directly to greenhouse gases, global warming, the melting of the poles, the extinction of polar bears and penguins. Unless we have parity between staff and students in the car-park, the threat to the biodiversity of the planet is real, is serious - and ladies and gentleman, it is now." A giddy shriek of approval from the Emmas, with another from the Emilys (who were nearly as numerous) erupted across the hall.
"What about the woman's need to play snooker in the Union?" came Fallopia's voice again. "A restriction on parking spaces for female students will be a degrading step backwards to sexual and domestic servitude, and compulsory Pharaonic circumcision a certainty." With bewitching little screams of horror, five Emmas and three Emilys swooned. "Yes, sisters, it comes to a basic principle - a woman's right to cues."
"And Oi've got my own tribunal waiting for me when Oi qualify, worth one mill a year," moaned Roger Fitzgerald. "But Oi'll lose it if Oi don't pass my law finals, which is what Oi will do if Oi have to spend half-an-hour every morning looking for a parking space."
"I'M LIKE, OMIGOD, NO WAY," cried the Emilys and Emmas in harmonious unison.
Finally, the meeting accepted a joint motion from Fallopia Whynge and Sebastian Grope that a menagerie for endangered polar animals should be built on the staff car-park.
As Fallopia explained, it was a woman's right to zoos.