An Irishman's Diary

IT IS ONLY a matter of time, surely, before that purveyor of traffic information, AA Roadwatch, has its credit rating downgraded a couple of notches by Standard Poor’s. I predict a drop to BB Roadwatch. Or maybe AB+ Roadwatch, with a negative outlook. And whenever it happens, it won’t be before time.

Not that the service is entirely useless. I freely acknowledge my debt to the AA Roadwatch website’s mileage calculator, without which the compilation of journalists’ expenses would be even more challenging than it is. And if for nothing else, the team of broadcasters will go down in history for inventing a new Irish accent, or at least a new way of saying “roundabout”.

But does anyone ever truly benefit from the snippets of traffic advice for which the AA gets such enormous airtime? Do they ever influence decisions drivers make? Or are they not always – as I suspect, being only an occasional commuter – too little information, too late? Certainly, on those days when I do have to suffer Dublin traffic, I tend to throw myself instead on the mercies of the broadcasting wing of City Hall, Dublin City FM. Its drive-time programmes operate out of the traffic control centre, after all, with access to the omniscient cameras.

So when the presenters tell you (as they will, sometimes too cheerfully) that “it’s 24 minutes from the M50 to St John’s Road, and then an eight-minute queue for the turn-off to Kilmainham”), well, you can usually take that information to the bank.

Drivers listening to the programme have at least a sporting chance to switch their investment from, say, the Grand Canal to the South Circular Road, in time to save a few minutes off the journey.

Provided, of course, that they act before all the other listeners do. But then again, I’m not sure that even Dublin City FM’s more informed traffic bulletins are not just entertainment, really: packaging the daily drama that is rush-hour and easing the frustrations of drivers by making them feel like members of the cast.

I suppose AA Roadwatch bulletins are entertainment too, of a kind. Since they have to cover the entire country in sound-bite-sized nuggets, they can’t include much detail anyway. Hence all those vague pronouncements that traffic is “moving well in Galway” or “getting busy in Limerick”, which are always about as useful as nipples on a bull.

Speaking of livestock, the announcers will occasionally excel themselves by reporting that a flock of chickens has escaped from a lorry on the N52, or something. But barring the unlikely chance that you’re just around corner from said chickens, the only possible benefit of such information will be to cheer you up, briefly, as you queue for the turn-off to Kilmainham.

ON THE SAMEgeneral subject, meanwhile, somebody recently posted me a copy of the Ordnance Survey's new Dublin commuter map. Which is not a thing I had ever felt much need for before. And yet I have since spent several mornings studying it over the cornflakes, fascinated.

One of the document’s revelations is the sub-map of the M50, showing in detail all that motorway’s various junctions. I have driven most at one time or another. But not until now did I realise that no two intersections are alike.

On the contrary: they range widely, from the simple, symmetrical Junction 16 (at Killiney), to the much more intricate junction 9 (Red Cow), to the extraordinarily convoluted Junction 6 (Blanchardstown), where any attempt at symmetry has been abandoned.

And no doubt it is local topographical and demographical conditions that dictated their shape, in the main. But my suspicion is that the civil engineers involved were also former boy-scouts, who have been enjoying a private joke. Thus, unless I’m mistaken, their junctions include a fisherman’s knot, a double sheet bend, two granny knots, and a slippery hitch. There may be others I haven’t recognised.

The most interesting thing about the map, however, has almost nothing to do with the highlighted roads and rail-routes. It is instead the colourful and eccentric place-names that still lurk everywhere on the outskirts of Dublin, their meanings often lost in translation from the original Irish, or in some cases – where there was never any Irish involved – just forgotten.

Cupidstown I knew about already. But it had previously escaped my attention that the same, amorous section of the Naas Road also passes a place named Bustyhill. Not far away from either, by contrast, is an area called Banshee. And a bit further north is Clutterland, which sounds like my house but is actually a place-name near Clondalkin.

The Moor of Meath I have mentioned here before. Yet even the prosaic English names that otherwise dominate Dublin’s northwestern approaches have their charms. In close proximity are Nuttstown, Gunstown, Pellettstown, and Barstown, which combined, sound like a recipe for trouble. There too are the almost-neighbouring areas of Muckerstown and Dunmucky: the life-story in miniature of many an ex-rural migrant, like myself.

North of the airport, interestingly, is a place that sounds like it might be attracting aircraft of a different kind: Saucerstown. Just south of the airport are the seasonal twins, Coldwinters and Merryfalls. And the same general area also includes such delights as Goddamendy, Boggyheary, and Skephubble.

Inevitably, there are several place-names that could have been invented for traffic bulletins, including Littlepace (near Mulhuddart), and Passifyoucan, a dare that occurs in at least two different locations on the map. Best-named of all, of course, is that quintessentially Irish traffic artery, the Longmile Road. Which, as AA Roadwatch might say, is expected to be especially long this evening, due to rush-hour.