Young O'Brien had met the lovely Colette at university in Dublin and romance blossomed and then fully bloomed. Twas not long before O'Brien was invited back to Mayo to meet Colette's family - the Cassidys, farmers of long standing. As always, the family gathered in the front room, or parlour, and father-in-law-to-be Mick Cassidy began to hold court on the day's work at the farm.

While tea and cakes and sandwiches were brought in, Mick said to O'Brien:

'I've shovelled fourteen and a half tons of manure this afternoon - have another sandwich!'

With that the big Texan came over to Murphy.

'No thanks,' muttered O'Brien.

'This morning I shovelled over fifteen tons of manure, have a custard cream.'

'No thanks,' was the weak reply.

A short time later Cassidy senior went out of the room and the young suitor said: 'Your father's a lovely man, but he keeps talking about manure all the time. It's putting me off my grub. Can't you get him to say fertiliser?'

'Listen,' said Colette, 'it's taken us years to get him to say manure!'