Snapshots of Donegal

Emissions: Are you familiar with the expression "gunning down the highway"? To most people, it conjures up the image of some crazed crackhead granny tearing down the freeways of Tennessee in a high-speed pursuit on "World's Most Dangerous Police Chases Part 56".

But some of the good people of Donegal have a different take on it. Not for them the metaphorical abstractions of the English lexicon.

No sirree. They take the phrase literally. So literally, in fact, that Donegal County Council is up arms about it, if you'll excuse the poor pun.

The problem is this: Scores of road signs in the Donegal Gaeltacht are regularly being vandalised by thrill-seekers with high-powered rifles taking potshots at them. There's more holes in your average Donegal roadsign than George W Bush's military record.

The route around the foot of the majestic Errigal is a particularly favoured haunt of these loons, but not their sole hunting ground. Some of the signs outside the beautiful town of Falcarragh would put you in mind of being in downtown Baghdad. Apart from them being as Gaeilge. Obviously.

The suspected culprits are not, as one would expect, redundant IRA snipers keeping their eye in on the off chance they'll be needed again, but local youngfellas with too much time on their hands. There's also the theory that deerhunters - discovering they are rubbish at shooting defenceless animals - are taking out their frustration on inanimate objects. That, to me, seems more probable, such activity being about the intellectual and emotional level of your average hunter.

The council - which is planning a €1.5 million revamp of the roadsigns of the Donegal Gaeltacht - is so concerned about protecting their valuable assets that they are considering installing surveillance cameras.

The sharpshooters of Donegal will doubtless be delighted at this thoughtful gesture. The standard spycam makes a very satisfying "ping" when hit with a .22 bullet, apparently. Maybe the council would consider making them mobile, so they would pose more of a challenge?

While we're on the subject of cameras, I've had a bit of a brainwave. Now that the Garda Traffic Watch has gone nationwide and it's our civic duty to grass on the thousands of eejits still gallivanting mindlessly around our highways and byways with as much regard for the safety of the public as a starving front-row forward has for the well-being of a burger, we need to be armed for the task.

What better way than to use camera phones to catch transgressors in the act? I demand all motorists be given one free, in the name of public safety.

Imagine the money it'd save - all the gardaí could just sit in front of the telly all day, eating chips and waiting for the phone messages to roll in. They'd never have to leave the station again. And then we'd all be happy.

All motorists out there who hate cyclists can get some revenge too. Spot a pedaller nipping through the lights or skipping up onto the pavement? Snap 'em. I realise, being a cyclist who is none too innocent of rule-bending myself, I'm asking for trouble here, but I don't care. I probably deserve it if I'm caught weaving through lorries on Dame Street.

To make it easier for you to bust me, I'm a sprightly 73-year-old spinster on a tandem, the back seat of which is normally taken up by my 34- stone pet albino fur seal, Alphonse. He loves the spring breeze in his hair, bless him.