Shane Hegarty's encyclopaedia of modern Ireland
Dublin Airport is the proud creator of an unparalleled test of patience and aptitude. It is known as the Departures Drop-Off area: a zone of total chaos in which drivers have only a few minutes to figure out how many lanes there are and which ones they can stop in. Then they have to pull over without getting side-swiped by a taxi, get their passengers to the path without one of them having their suitcase clobbered by a coach and, finally, get the car out again - while still trying to guess which lanes might be for pedestrians, or for cars, or for freemen of the city to walk their sheep in.
It is a place of pure mayhem quite unlike any other in the country, a stretch of road that makes a Paris roundabout look as genteel as a Victorian carousel. As a passenger it's worth being thankful that air traffic control has a little more control of the vehicles it's responsible for.
A visit to the airport is a mind-burbling experience, with the drop-off zone a tumultuous introduction to an unruly airport. After you dash from the car to the terminal, you must then negotiate the tobacco fog churned out by passengers getting one last fag in before the flight to Magaluf.
Once at the check-in area you must work out which line to join. That doesn't sound like too much of a task, but in a slim space crammed with thousands of people - and many thousands more suitcases - this can be tricky. The way quantum physics can be tricky. In an attempt to disentangle yourself from the mob, you could end up queuing for the wrong check-in desk, the taxi queue or the exit, although it's always worth searching out the line that's not moving at all. It's probably yours.
The queue you join could also be the one for the security gates, which at times has been known to snake around the airport, through the short-term car park, across the M1, down the coast and into the sea. Once in line, you waddle towards the X-ray machines with your shoelaces undone, your belt in your hand and your jacket over your arm while you try to empty your pockets of three kilograms of change and keys. All while Kathryn Thomas calmly wishes you well.
Which is the genius of Dublin Airport. It yanks at your patience, prods at your sanity. It frustrates, irritates and infuriates. It pushes you to the point at which you yell: "I need to get out of this f***ing country!" And then it helps you do just that. .