Good morning and welcome to AA Roadwatch. In Dublin, traffic is reported to be very heavy on the quays, with delays of at least two to three hours. Kevin Myers reports from the roads.
This is largely because of the usual morning road-works between seven and nine, Irish road-workers being unable to work at night. And of course, there are the usual delivery lorries parked on double yellow lines, their flashing lights - naturally - conveying immunity to all law.
Traffic on the N 7 is very heavy, in part due to the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz which is being towed by students to Limerick, and which is currently berthed next to the Johnstown Garden Centre. Things are not being made any easier there by the Forth River Bridge which is being transported to Cork, and which is causing long tailbacks in both directions.
There's no movement at all on the Castleknock Road, which is a car-park from the Dublin city centre to Blanchardstown. This is due to the ESB man up a stepladder changing a bulb on the lamp-standard on the Cabra Road.
In Lucan, there's been no traffic progress of any kind since February. Several thousand vehicles are trapped at the broken traffic lights on the main road there while council workmen try to decide where they're going to erect their hut. The bus-lanes have been closed by a bin lorry, which is expected to finish its collections some time around November.
Things are looking better on the Stillorgan bypass, where the traffic jam from last Monday week is finally beginning to clear. Bands of famished skirmishers left over from the Pope's visit of 1979, who had been killing and eating drivers, finally seem to have been cleared by the Army's Ranger Wing, and waiting time is now down to a week and a half. Not such good news at the Merrion Gates, however, where the last of the Christmas tailback got mixed up with the August Bank Holiday rush. That might take some time to clear. We're told a Garda is coming from Mulhuddart to investigate. We'll keep you posted on that later in the month.
They've probably got something of a hangover in Dundrum, which last night was celebrating its fifth successive victory in the World Protracted Traffic-Jam Contest. It managed to see off competition from Calcutta, Mexico City and even Dresden, which put in its traffic jam in 1945 as its entry. Sorry, Fritz, but you couldn't compete with Dundrum. Archaeological digs suggest some of the traffic there hasn't budged an inch since 1969.
And they're back at the peak of their form this morning, hangovers or not, because not a thing is moving through Dundrum, Ballinteer or Churchtown.
You might have thought this was a matter for local pride, but not to some residents, apparently. We've just heard from a woman who complains she's been trying to get her children to school for several years now. They've just completed their Leaving Cert, over her mobile phone, and their destination now is Belfield, or at least it will be when the 10,000-vehicle traffic tailback in front of her dissipates. Lighten up, lady: you've got it easy. Carbon dating at the front end of the jam suggests that some people have been waiting since the 1950s.
Things are little better around the countryside generally. The usual story at Kildare town of course, with 20-mile tailbacks in both directions. Road-works in the centre of the town have made things worse, but it should ease when the works stop at 10 this morning, resuming of course at five this evening.
The Athlone bypass has been closed because, well, it just has been, so there, yah boo sucks, and all traffic to the north-west now must pass through the town. However, the Corpus Christi procession is making that impossible, and no movement at all is expected until April next. The Air Corps has been parachuting supplies to motorists stranded on the Roscommon Road.
To Galway next, and bad news from Eyre Square, where the big clear-up after the festival has clashed with workmen taking down last year's Christmas lights, while other workmen are putting up the lights for next Christmas.
And the State funeral for the tourists who died of famine in their bus in the Great Castlrea Jam is taking place there about now, so traffic movement is expected to be every bit as non-existent as it usually is.
It's pretty much the same story in Limerick. The city has been brought to a standstill by the bloody feud between the Little Daughters of Grinding Poverty and The Simpering Sisters Of Sant' Onana. The feud first erupted over who had right of way in the year-long traffic jam on the Ennis road.
Gardaí are warning that diversions are now in place around the convents of The Handmaidens of Ravishing Untouchability and The Singing Seamstresses of Jesus, to whom the feud seems to have spread - so expect delays there also.
Pretty much the same story in Drogheda, where the last of Cromwell's boys are finally managing to totter, weeping, out of the town. It has been nearly as bad in Balbriggan, where the front of the jam consists of some Crossley tenders containing some very peeved Black and Tans.
Now to Sligo town, where Sinn Féin is hosting its annual parade to celebrate The Great Mullaghmore Boat-Bomb. The town is enjoying a week long festival to commemorate that crushing blow for liberty, so don't expect any traffic movement there. But elsewhere, I'm afraid, the traffic news isn't so good. This is Con Jestyon, AA Road Watch.