IT IS that time of the year again over here in the wild west. It’s camper van chaos season on the byways and boreens of Co Mayo. God help us.
Beats me why nobody has told the pilots of these trundling mammoths that, on this side of the Shannon, motorways are distant and exotic icons of the Celtic Tiger era.
Beats me too why nobody has warned the owners of these RV motor-homes that here in Connaught the tractor and trailer still reign supreme. Rural bridges are the architectural artifacts of Congested Districts Board engineers, and the potholes – according to some county councillors anyway – are big enough for a fleet of Achill yawls to weigh anchor.
Camper vans are perfect for the autobahn; they are ideal for cruising along the M1 or the M50. But I can categorically confirm they regularly prove to be a serious hazard on the meandering and narrow roads of rural Ireland. Particularly when many of their captains are used to driving on the other side of the road back home in continental Europe.
Okay, I suppose I had better come clean and admit that driving anything more powerful than a Yamaha 90 eluded me until I tripped across that middle-age hurdle of 40. A decade, or so, later and I still approach my car as if it is a hostile ship from outer space.
Nightmares about that first time I took the wheel alone still recur with a haunting regularity. It was new year’s morning, 2000.
There was a cold, menacing wind blowing in from the Atlantic as the hazy memory of the previous night’s revelling resolution pounded in my head.
The L-plate on my grey Polo Fox was covered in early-morning frost while I fumbled with a bunch of most unhelpful keys.
Muttering to myself, I insisted the shake in my hands was alcohol-induced. It had nothing to do with the feeling of terror churning through my intestines, I argued.
The beleaguered patron saint of travellers, St Christopher, was the only man on my mind as I set off on my solitary pilgrimage from Westport Quay to Croagh Patrick.
And the immediacy of his response renewed my faith in the power of persuasion through prayer. Other than two cyclists, high on the elixir of aerobic energy, the winding coast road was traffic free.
Of course there was little danger of a major collision or crash, since I would have been faster undertaking the six-mile trip with a donkey and cart. Back in those early days of driving, I never dared beyond the controlled comfort of the third gear. (It sounds terribly naive, but I firmly believed that only rally drivers went into fifth.) It was only weeks later that I realised the reason my geriatric jalopy was disinclined to propel itself forward was because I had left the rather dodgy handbrake on.
No wonder the bruises on my trembling knees didn’t fade until around St Patrick’s Day.
A decade later and I still come out in hot sweats when I see a sign for a roundabout. Don’t even mention the M (motorway) word. It causes sleepless nights and alarming palpitations.
Bizarrely, I manage to compensate for my motoring inadequacies by indulging in colourful outbursts directed at the many innocent – and often hopelessly lost – tourists who wander wide-eyed along the roads of this scenic county. Naturally, my most colourful vitriol is preserved for the camper van brigadiers and their co-pilots.
Take Main Street in Westport any summer afternoon. It is often gridlocked. The pedestrian-friendly street is a busy bazaar of caffeinated aromas, buskers, clusters of students babbling in a pot-pourri of different languages, tethered pooches, rucksacked hikers.
There is always a Kombi or a Dormobile or two lurching up the street. And invariably the sight of the facade of Chieftains’ flautist Matt Molloy’s bar stops them dead.
Time is suspended as they stare reverently at the hostelry that over the past two decades has attracted thousands of tourists from Beijing and Barbados, New York and New South Wales, Coventry and Croydon, Ballydehob and Magheroarty.
Mayo becomes Mecca as they bow – even disembark onto the pathway to take photographs – at the altar to this world-renowned traditional musician.
Can you blame them for assuming that nobody in such a dinky little town is in a hurry? Can you blame them either, when they come to a sign-filled junction and suddenly, at the brow of a hill, in the middle of the road, stop dead in their tracks. No indicators. No hazard lights.
They are simply immersed in a nice relaxed conversation in French, or German, Catalan or Italian about whether they should turn left for Leenane or right for Louisburgh.
Eventually, distracted by the honking of a car horn, the co-pilot turns from her map and glances in a rear view mirror. There is a very red-faced blonde woman gesticulating and flailing her arms in the next car. Fortunately, they cannot hear what she is saying.