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Proverbs 17:10  tells us, “a rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” As this proverb says a hundred blows might not be enough to change a fool for the better and after experiencing the people of south-west and western Ireland I understand where the writer of this ancient adage is coming from. But I’m also optimistic and perhaps my critical blog will be the 101st or 102nd blow, the strike that finally gets through the pachydermous skin that’s so good at protecting the halfwits I rail against.  

Of more pertinence to one’s own emotional welfare is Proverb 17:12, “let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly.” The man who wrote this adage must surely have, back in the day, encountered Ireland’s Picts, as it’s only these that could torment anyone more perniciously than a maternally upset female bear. Get in the way of the she-bear and death will come within hours, but get in the way of the stupid Picts and they will claw out the very essence of your being, a slow demise, a torture not even Josef Mengele could have thought off.

That’s what this blog is about, to give the innocent a foretaste of what can be expected in south-west or western Ireland. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.  

Wharf had been built seventeen metres inland.

An example of chronic rural Irish foolishness:

Circa 2001 a seaside town in south-west Ireland was given a grant, by the Irish government, to build a quay in order to attract yachts and people of the sailing fraternity to the area. The economy in this part of Ireland is very reliant on tourism and anything that gives the natives a financial leg-up is to be welcomed.   

The good folk who made up the local authority in this coastal town duly set about planning and constructing the long sought after wharf. And by all reports they made record time in getting the pier built and the finished fabrication looked, and was, robust. Almost certainly, in years to come, the local builders planned to tell their grandchildren about the part they had played in the creation of the jetty which no doubt would make their town a millionaire’s playground.

A least the seagulls could make use of it.

After a short time someone pointed out that there might be a problem with the new quay, that there would probably be difficulties for yacht owners who tried mooring their boats there. The problem turned out to be that the new wharf had been built seventeen metres inland; at high tide 5 HGVs could be parked side by side between the high-water mark and the bollards intended for securing boats.

I remember back in 2002 making a ridiculing comment to a smart-assed native about this fiasco and his response was to tell me that the builders had been clever: “sure didn’t the quay have to be demolished and then rebuilt in the proper place,” he told me. He then went on tell how the good people of this town got another 10 to 12 months work: “which they wouldn’t have had if they built the wharf in the proper place first time round.”

Where normal people build piers.

It is possible that the natives in south-west Ireland did, just to create extra work, purposefully build it in the wrong place and, of course, this would have been egregiously stupid. But even more stupid is the fact that they might have had no intention of building it in the wrong place; that it was just sheer incompetence and moronism, born of inbreeding, that caused them to build the pier seventeen metres inland.

One summer's day I encountered two trainee surveyors in a farmer’s field just to the west of Cork city, replete with  theodolite and other bits of equipment, who were busily digging a hole about ½ a metre from a public path that ran along the banks of the river Lee. This footpath is a public right of way and much used by ramblers and anglers. I pointed out to these two students that it was dangerous to be digging a hole beside this much used public footway and the response I got was breathtaking.

A joke that’s as factual as it is funny.

One of these students, with his eyes bulging out of his head, started to yell at me: “do you own this field?” Even his slackjawed colleague was taken by surprise and backed away dragging his shovel behind him. The only thing pertinent to say about this Cork trainee surveyor is that he had fairly severe mental health issues and, very probably, was totally unsuitable for training as a surveyor – or anything that didn't involve a sweeping brush.

And those unfamiliar with Ireland’s educational system might think that the worst this areshole might do is waste the college staff’s time and fail the surveyor's course – and, in the process, probably damage a lot of the college’s equipment. Those familiar with backward Ireland, though, will be well aware that his madness and incompetence might not get in the way of him becoming a “qualified” surveyor; that he would very probably get his dismal exam results grade-inflated to passing point, or be able, with the help of other students and a moronic invigilator, to cheat his way to qualifying.

This prick could very well end up playing a major part in constructing wharfs that have hundreds of square metres of dry land on either side.