It's no joke - Brian Cowen's face is selling out in Athlone

One local trader's decision to order one thousand Brian Cowen rubber masks has resulted in a boom in trade as the country goes bust. In fact, as the trials and tribulations of our country's leader receive continuing public criticism, the Athlone Joke Shop is selling out the fancy dress mask. "We've always been getting the English and American politicians but people want the Irish ones, so I decided to order the Brian Cowen masks. I'm lucky in one sense that he hasn't resigned since I made the order as they took a long time to come and I had to order a lot," said proprietor Barry Kenna. In fact, the mask is now the shop's best-ever seller, only matched in sales of Ian Paisley masks. The easiest outfit to match the mask is of course, a suit, however some people are being a bit more creative. "Last weekend, I had a fella hire a jester's costume and a Brian Cowen mask, and he wore the two of them together, so you can see where he was going with that," said Barry. He said the success behind the popularity of any rubber mask is all down to timing - whether that person hits the headlines and the more controversial the reason the better. And of course, a memorable face makes a mask all the more successful. "I suppose you could say Cowen has a distinguished face," agreed Barry. "A lot of people see them in the window and come in for him, others come from all around the country. You wouldn't get that with Enda Kenny." Barry ordered a total of 1,000 masks from a Chinese company and it took a number of discussions with the company to ensure that the mask was an exact replica of the Taoiseach's face. He's expecting a bumper sell-out for Hallow'een. Perhaps in a bid to escape the current climate, Barry said that the fancy-dress trade is still very strong at the moment, as fancy-dress parties continue to be hugely popular, whether for Hallow'een, Christmas, stag or hen parties. "It's all fancy dress parties now, we started fancy dress hire seven years ago and since then it's taken off big time. Business is still as good, but it's harder to get the bigger sales. People used to hire two costumes if they couldn't make up their mind, but now they're only hiring one and a wig."