Barbarians at the gates

Here's a funny thing: Did you know the term jaywalking was coined to describe the perambulatory antics of Irish peasants? Didya?

For the past 30-odd years, I thought the jay referred to was a bird, one that for some reason had a penchant for wandering under car wheels. Why jays should be associated with such behaviour, I questioned not.

But it has nothing to do with birds. According to my in-depth research on the subject (q.v. 30 seconds on the internet) the word, jay, was American slang in the early 1900s for a bumpkin unused to the ways of the big city.

The Oxford English Dictionary even traces the word to Boston. While there is no specific mention of the Oirish, you could knock me down with a blue feather if the fella involved didn't have a streak o' Paddy in him.

For emigrants from which country were streaming in their tens of thousands into that great city at the time? You guessed it. (Work with me here, people.)

One imagines the average peasant from the wilds of Connemara strutting around Boston in his finest potato sack suit can't have been too au fait with new-fangled devices such as Model Ts bearing down on him at a terrifying seven miles an hour.

So there you have it. Jaywalking - one of the many great contributions by the Irish to the English lexicon. (Another is hooligan. What does that say about us?)

Roll the clock forward a hundred years and move the scene back across the Atlantic, and what do we see - we're still at it. Not that we have a global monopoly on the activity, but by Jaysus, are we Irish fond of acting the pavement lemming.

It is, believe it or not, illegal to jaywalk in Ireland. You can be done for wilfully disregarding the wee red fella, making a break for it within 50 feet of a designated pedestrian crossing, ignoring Garda signals or just dispensing with the footpath altogether and using the road. Not that you'd know.

While the penalties for being busted are, in theory, severe - fines from €800 to €1,500 for first and second offences, three months sharing a cell with Bubba the Lustmachine for a third offence - the fact is nobody ever gets nicked. So what's the point in having a law that is never enforced?

To whit, I have been of late conducting a surreptitious little experiment - trying to get arrested for jaywalking. (Don't try this at home kids - I'm a professional after all.) It's impossible.

Examples: I stood beside a garda for 30 seconds at traffic lights on College Green before launching myself into oncoming traffic. Looked back at him halfway, daring him to react. Not a flicker.

An hour later, did the same thing on O'Connell Bridge beside another of our finest. Did he notice? Did he (insert expletive here). He was too busy giving tourists directions.

I suppose it's to be expected. If gardaí won't bother busting junkie mothers shoving prams through traffic, oblivious to all around them, why would they bother with the likes of me?

There is a theory - one I ascribe to - that the persistent communal violation of pedestrian laws correlates directly with the breakdown of respect for law and order and, by extension, the decline of Western civilisation.

Essentially, the argument is that the cultural acceptance of large-scale jaywalking is indicative of the new 21st century mindset - people just don't care about others anymore, couldn't care less about how their strolling into oncoming traffic can cause havoc to motorists and cyclists alike. As long as they're all right, to hell with the rest. And if they do get themselves splattered, sure they can always sue. It's always somebody else's fault.

This a slippery slope - it starts with everyone regarding "minor" lawbreaking such as jaywalking as the norm and ends up with anarchy.

It's the beginning of the end, I tell ya. The Barbarians are at the gates . . .