February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
As reports would also later relate, the ex-cop was the worse for the drink. A little way down the road, an elderly couple were driving in their car. The husband, who was behind the wheel, had only moments to live. The car driven by the former guardian of the peace rammed into the couple’s car.
One life ended, a second, that of the dead man’s wife, was torn apart — and that had nothing to do with her physical injuries — and a third life, that of the ex-cop, was ruined beyond what even the soothing powers of a wee drop could ever repair.
So what? you ask. Another crash on an Irish road, another grim statistic that merely reinforces the fact that driving in Ireland these days is on a par with taking a sun holiday on an Iraqi beach.
What’s striking about this particular tragedy was the fact that both the victims and the alleged offender were traveling in Mercedeses.
A couple of years ago there was a Celtic Tiger tale that raised eyebrows in the few remaining parts of the world where Ireland was still thought of in terms of donkeys laden with turf baskets. The Mercedes-Benz motor company had run out of its signature model of the day: the big and fast one. It simply couldn’t keep up with the orders from the tiger’s newly flush citizens.
This, surely, was a mark of great progress, a symbol of all that was well and good with modern, turbo-powered Ireland.
In one sense the answer was a resounding yes. But on the road straddling the foothills that reach into Dublin and Wicklow, the makes of car were also a metaphor for an Ireland that is heading hard for dangerous curves.
Indeed, the old sod is already going round the bend, if a new study is on the mark. It shows the Irish having more money and being physically healthier than ever before. And yet, general satisfaction with life has fallen to levels not seen since the disgruntled years of the 1980s when recession stalked the land and tens of thousands were emigrating.
Irish people are now working longer hours, more days, skipping lunch breaks and rank at the bottom of the European Union league table when it comes to vacation days.
The report into Ireland’s quality of life, carried out by a consulting company, found that half the population of the island — the survey was carried out on both sides of the border — believes itself to be seriously stressed out.
The “ancient birthplace of good times,” it appears, needs some valium along with its raw economic meat.
This should be of concern to all of us living in the 24/7 United States who like to occasionally amble back to the old sod for a break without colliding with some nerve-jangled local sprinting toward the nearest emotional cliff. What can we do from afar for a land we hold dear yet seems to be veering headlong from craic to crumple zone?
Sadly, not a lot.
The fact is, we’re going to have to go with the flow in contemporary Ireland whenever we set foot in the place. And that includes going with the flow of the island’s road traffic, a phenomenon that manages to double as both the slowest and fastest manifestation of contemporary Irish living.
These days, sitting in a traffic jam in Dublin and a tailback in L.A. is a distressingly similar experience. Indeed, one letter writer to an Irish daily recently compared traveling around Dublin to movement, or lack thereof, in a U.S. Sunbelt city.
And who knows, global warming might make Dublin look like Los Angeles in more than just vehicular terms. Cork and Belfast could fill in for Phoenix and Las Vegas.
It being August, not a few folks from the U.S. will be lapping up the hospitality that Ireland still offers generously, and in an abundance made more lavish still as a result of financial prosperity.
For those who make regular visits to Ireland, big changes beyond this enduring hospitality are now generally anticipated.
If it’s been a few years since the traveler’s last sojourn, the changes are quite glaring, in some cases astounding.
It would be fascinating indeed to have a crystal ball and be able to see how things will be 20 or 30 years from now.
But one isn’t really necessary because projects already in the works, projections of population growth and “inward migration,” along with changing social mores, already tell much the tale.
The Irish of, say, 2030 will be more squeezed in terms of living space, spend more time in their cars, less time in church, the pub and the home. And they will have less time to respond to surveys asking them if they are happy or not.
The island itself will be laced with ever wider highways.
As it becomes more crowded, the island is going to feel smaller.
Dublin’s suburbs will extend ever deeper into neighboring counties. The city will have a greater variety of public transportation systems than most other capitals on the planet, but getting around the place will still be a nightmare. The spanking new motorways will carve wide swathes through the countryside, affording splendid views of hills, fields and forest lands.
The reverse will also be the case. The view from the fields, hills and through gaps in the trees will be of Irish autobahns full of big cars driven at speeds that would make even the Germans gasp.
Somebody will find a faded postcard in a field with the face of a red-haired kid with a donkey carrying baskets of turf. The field will be simultaneously declared an archaeological site and the route for a new six lane intercity link route. The “cities” concerned will have surprising names like Athlone and Mullingar.
And on what passes for a relatively quiet night, a stressed-out inhabitant will tank up, crank up and roar down a miraculously empty road, not thinking for a moment who or what lies just around the next bend.