Traffic Safety and the Preeminence of Sport in Ireland

I heard the crash before I saw it.

I looked up from the road and inexplicably saw the roof of a car where I should have seen the tail end.

I called to the boys to wait there, dropped my bike, and ran up the hill as fast as my tired and waterlogged legs would carry me. As I got closer, I recognized the car; my experienced eyes had noted it moments before… coming around a bend faster than it should have. My instincts are conservative, but sometimes they’re right. Already as I ran, I started forming the lecture for my as-yet-prepubescent children. 

Drive more slowly. Look for bikers. Allow greater following distance in the rain—etcetera, etcetera.

As I drew closer, the athletic young man—complete with sports jersey—was climbing vertically out through the passenger door, standing on the skyward side of the car, and jumping down. I called to him, asking if there was anyone else inside. He shook his head. I asked if he was okay, and he nodded, though the parkour antics he had just performed implied he was currently in better physical condition than most people. A state of shock, maybe. But physically, I think he felt better than I did.

At this point, another man pulled up and got out of his car… and I came to understand the Irish just a little bit better. 

He quickly assessed the situation. He saw that the young man seemed to be okay, that I was calm and not frantically trying to get another person from the car. Seeing the jersey the young man was wearing, he said, “Are you playing in the hurling match coming up?”

hurling — noun — ˈhər-liŋ

: an Irish sport that is a cross between soccer, field hockey, and medieval jousting played with wooden sticks that resemble machetes

The young man nodded and looked dejected. 

The gentleman continued, “It’s just up the way a piece; we’ll find someone to take you,” quickly skipping over the fact that he couldn’t take him himself because the single-track road was entirely blocked by the young man’s car.

To be sure, I was at first surprised that an upcoming sporting match was taking priority. 

In my experience, following traffic accidents, people call some combination of insurance companies, police, and tow trucks. So why wasn’t that happening here? 

But upon reflection, this scene somehow fit and helped flesh out the picture of Ireland as we are coming to know it. Hurling is the most popular sport here. It has a three-thousand-year history, and its revival in the late nineteenth century helped give cultural traction for Ireland’s eventual hard-won independence from its overbearing neighbor across the Irish Sea. A town’s quality can be measured by the number of hurling pitches, and a county’s self-esteem—and Guinness consumption—can be predicted by the local hurling team’s current standing. 

So one shouldn’t be too surprised that this solitary gentleman wanted to make sure this hurler made it to the pitch on time…

Next, a woman approached the scene. After assessing that everyone was okay, she briefly thought about the possibility of someone coming to clear the road—until she learned that the young hurler needed to play in the upcoming match. 

At which point, she too concluded that getting him to the hurling pitch was far more critical than the conveyance of people and goods along the roadway.

As I left, everything seemed to be well in hand; the first gentleman had contacted someone to pick up the young hurler and make sure that the match can go on as scheduled.

I’m sure eventually someone will clear the road too.