Following the right of reply recently exercised by my friend and fellow State employee Niall Crowley, I, the Red Cow Roundabout, would like to state my objections to recent remarks in An Irishman's Diary.
We roundabouts have feelings too, you know, and it's all very well for Mr So-Called Kevin Myers to make fun of the serious work we do. I take particular exception to his criticisms of myself.
Firstly, as to my credentials. I am amongst the most qualified roundabouts in Ireland. I began my career in the public service as a bollard: but I was determined to better myself. I went to night-school and studied hard, and in time I achieved the City and Guilds' diploma as a pedestrian island. I was appointed to a humble position near Benburb Street in Dublin, where, alas, an articulated lorry-driver took a turn too sharp, and mounted my kerb.
By the time I emerged from traffic-island hospital, my old job beside the Liffey was gone and there were no vacancies for a pedestrian island anywhere in the city. I was even contemplating reverting to being a bollard again - anything rather than the dole, with all those ancient signposts in miles, Belisha beacons, zebra crossings, Black Spot signs, shuffling in the queue and reminiscing about the glory days of the Ford Cortina and Morris Minor, bore, bore, bore.
But then came the Glorious Revolution, the moment of liberation for us all, when some unknown genius in the Department of the Environment recognised that the Irish weather and environment were particularly suited for the cultivation of roundabouts. For roundabouts thrive in that generous atmosphere of consensual indecision which is Ireland's greatest contribution to political science.
Rescued from the dole queue, I began work on the Dublin-Belfast road, where I was placed randomly, with no exit or entry junctions to the main arterial route at all. But I was determined to do well, and I did: I cut down traffic speeds and increased journey times, and often enough was able to conjure long, restful periods of Zen contemplation for drivers (known to those zealots in the AA as "congestion") at the most improbable moments.
(My proudest achievement was when I was able to becalm three cars, a cyclist and a handcart for a full hour at 3 a.m.)
Soon I knew I could not achieve my ambition of slowing the breakneck pace of Irish life alone. I entered a correspondence course at the Enver Hoxha School of Traffic Management in Tirhana. I graduated to the Kim Il Sung College for Roundabouts, where I learnt of the pioneering discoveries being made there. North Korea had only 40 cars, all of them owned by the beloved leader, yet they were regularly engaged together in long periods of Zen group-contemplation.
When the vacancy for the interchange between the N7 and the M50 came up, naturally I applied. At my interview I argued that the free movement of traffic would create inequalities. I argued against merging lanes, because this would encourage personal initiative, and didn't allow for less talented drivers. I argued for central control over all traffic flow, because this would ensure equal allocation of time to traffic coming from each direction.
In a political culture which cherishes those selfish qualities of boldness, decisiveness, efficiency, imagination, I would of course never have succeeded. Fortunately, Ireland's uniquely benign culture of consensual indecision has refined muddle into an ideological art form, which we call fairness. It is indeed fair, and there is nothing fairer than me, the Red Cow Roundabout, as I became. No matter who you are, you're not going by me in a hurry.
Though I say it myself, my first 10 years were an astonishing success. I am one of the major tourist attractions in the country, not least because once tourists have managed to get to me, they find it almost impossible to leave. Some say that the whine which can sometimes be heard is stranded Asians keening for their homelands: I prefer to think the noise is one long groan of pleasure at the unexpected amounts of time they are spending in my company. Yes, indeed, I am doing my bit for multicultural Ireland.
But we roundabouts, we do not rest on our laurels. When I heard that a light tram system was being planned for Dublin, I knew my moment had come. I was already the central Zen feature in Irish life. Cars that were speeding from Cork and Limerick to Dublin and Belfast, and vice versa, were given the opportunity for endless meditation for many miles around me: I had become the Tibet of traffic. Why should I be selfish and exclude Dublin's thousands of rail-commuters from my calming influence?
Again, in more vigorous, restless governmental cultures, the idea of integrating a 21st-century, billion-euro light rail with a 1920s traffic roundabout would not have been contemplated. Happily, however, such a bigoted, intolerant and inegalitarian approach to traffic management was rejected: for enter, yet again, the sublime Irish political virtue of consensual indecision. Thus I, the Red Cow Roundabout, am shortly to find my glory as the sole governing commissar of traffic equality.
This is why I take grave exception to your so-called Diarist's baseless attacks against me as a public servant. In addition to bringing daily calm to thousands of drivers by doubling journey time, with the arrival of Luas in my sphere of influence I can bring Zen-like tranquillity and egalitarian immobility to all of greater Dublin. This is more than anything your alleged "columnist" can claim.