A fierce wind blew across the Stillorgan dual carriageway last Friday evening, whipping up the contents of a sack of rubbish abandoned earlier on the grass verge.
The result was a scene by no means exclusive to this area but sadly familiar to anyone who has travelled around Ireland. An assortment of plastic bags, soiled disposable nappies and redundant food-packaging swept across the windscreens of passing cars before moving on to long-term residency throughout the neighbourhood.
So sorry, Stillorgan, it looks as though you were not eligible for a top place at this year's Tidy Towns Competition. But not to worry; by way of consolation might you be interested in registering for the title of Ireland's Most Representatively Scruffy Spot?
Were it to be inaugurated, this event would offer a far truer, if less photogenically appealing, picture of contemporary Ireland than the annual Tidy Towns jamboree.
No doubt the organisers and sponsors of the Tidy Towns Competition believe they are doing us a favour with their endeavours. However, after more than four decades, it is surely time to call a halt to the undertaking and admit that an annual award intended to encourage greater civic pride throughout the State has failed in this ambition.
The number of towns entering the competition varies little from one year to the next, suggesting a certain stagnation of interest. And even more regrettably, the same names turn up over and over again.
Take a bow Kilkenny, Carrickmacross, Clonakilty, Kenmare, Glenties, Westport and, above all, plucky little Ardagh, Co Longford. You are the stalwarts of the competition, forever battling against one another - albeit tidily - for the honour of first place.
But should the organisers not ask you to retire from the fray, your efforts memorialised on some perpetual trophy? Should they not be hounding all those other urban centres which have hitherto paid no attention to the notion of being Ireland's tidiest town? And, just as importantly, should they not turn their attention to the manner in which the word "tidy" now seems to be interpreted.
Tidiness, customarily, implies a certain neatness and absence of disorder. In the present context, however, tidiness appears to be a synonym for tweeness.
Towns aspiring to win the competition invariably indulge in a orgy of painting every local house in a different colour and then smothering the results with an equally gaudy display of hardy annuals. Streets end up looking as though draped with the lurid floral equivalent of paper doilies.
The occasion ought to be sponsored, not by a supermarket chain but by a garden centre. This profession does best from the whole business as trays of begonias, nasturtiums and geraniums are scooped up for bedding in redundant water troughs, window boxes and hanging baskets.
In Irish tidy towns, colour blindness is an advantage.
More than 60 years ago the English poet John Betjeman coined the term "ghastly good taste" to describe a sensibility which ranked tweeness far above any fundamental appreciation of good design.
That this phenomenon is widespread among Irish tidy towns can be demonstrated simply by looking at the winner of last year's competition, Kenmare. On the same day the award was announced, another survey noted that the Co Kerry town had no appropriate planning controls or design guidance and that the main streets "are now a sea of tawdry swing-out plastic windows".
Frankly, no amount of hanging baskets or so-called traditional shop fronts can compensate for such basic architectural ignorance.
As a twee town, in which superficial floral decoration and rampant use of bright colours are given paramount importance, Kenmare - and indeed this year's winner, Westport - can congratulate themselves for the success of their efforts.
Meanwhile, the litter problem remains. If there is to be any serious effort to encourage greater civic pride in Ireland, perhaps the time has come to inaugurate an Untidy Towns Competition. Competing for glory has clearly not worked; avoiding the shame of being named the State's messiest place could have more success.