I SEE THAT the Co Meath town of Trim now bills itself as Ireland’s satirical capital. Or at least that’s the status it aspires to, according to the website of the Trim Swift Festival, which takes place in July. This now-annual event commemorates the famously witty Dean of St Patrick’s, who spent his early career in Co Meath. And through honouring him, says the website, Trim “is becoming the home of satire in Ireland”.
Only begrudgers will fail to wish the town well in its continued efforts. Which, the festival aside, have also been boosted by last month’s opening of the controversial new OPW offices. On top of the many millions already spent on the building – highly satirical in these straitened times – the move has also necessitated the provision of a special daily bus service, costing €2,300 a month, to decentralise staff from Dublin to Trim each morning, and recentralise them at night.
The twice-daily, 30-mile commute thus neatly offsets the good done by the environmentally friendly new building, with its empty bike parking spaces and many other energy-saving devices.
My colleague and fellow Frank – McDonald – has suggested that, in their squandering of taxpayers’ money, the new offices “illustrate folly on the grand scale” (or the two-grand scale, in the case of the monthly bus bill). But the full comic genius of the scheme would be lost anywhere else in Ireland. Because, in these corner-cutting times, where better to spend public money unnecessarily than in a place called “Trim”? Swift himself would have enjoyed the joke.
Anyway, the festival organisers have asked me to give the 2010 event a plug, so of course I will. It starts on July 1st. This year’s special guest is the famous Blairite spindoctor Alastair Campbell. And as well as the usual lectures, public debates, and stand-up comedy, the weekend will include what the organisers call – with that same wacky Meath sense of humour – a “Swift Walk”. Further details are available at www.trimswiftfestival.com
A FINE BUILDING in its own right, the Trim OPW offices are apparently inspired by Newgrange. Hence the circular shape, the importance placed on light, etc. But, personally, I worry about the confusion this may cause future historians. Imagine the scenario in a millennium or two’s time, when what is then left of the building is dug up and archaeologists try to decide what it was.
Ireland, 4010 AD – Dig Team Makes “Hugely Important” Discovery in Meath Bog: Archaeologists excavating a site in Meath have described as “very exciting” and “of utmost importance” the discovery of a large circular structure, thought to date from the late Christian period.
The building, comprising a concrete outer shell enclosing a number of interior chambers, appears to have been part of the ancient urban settlement known as “Trim”: buried – along with most of Leinster – by the unexpected but cataclysmic eruption of the Hill of Tara in 2041AD.
Experts believe the site may have served some religious or ceremonial purpose, perhaps as a place of burial for chieftains. Of particular significance, they suggest, is that the building seems to be specially aligned: facing either the mid-winter sunrise, or Dublin, or both.
One theory is that it was designed so that sunlight, or perhaps the souls of the dead, would enter it at some point. But experts are puzzled by the lack of evidence of human activity found so far.
Another possibility is that the structure was part of the “M3 Motorway” complex: a place of great political and spiritual significance to the late-Christian Irish, especially the ruling Fianna Fáil tribe.
Documentary fragments found on the site feature repeated references to something called “the decentralisation scheme”. This phrase has occurred elsewhere in contemporary manuscripts, usually in connection with a druidic figure named “McCreevy”, who was known for his magical powers and is said to have pulled something particularly dramatic “out of a hat” in December 2003.
“For all we know, the Trim building may have been a temple dedicated to him,” said Professor Harry Potter of Navan University, who is leading the dig. But archaeologists are also excited by the discovery of a large sign in the ruins bearing mysterious hieroglyphs in the shape of the letters O, P and W.
“Circles were very important to those people,” the professor said of the O. “We know for example that Dublin used to be surrounded by a giant ring-like structure, the “M50”, and that some people visited this for long periods every morning and evening, possibly in anticipation of eternity.
“Thus the O on the sign may have represented the idea of circularity or continuity. As for the W, theirs was an era of great economic turbulence: booms followed by busts. So the W may have served as a symbol of this cycle of elation and despair.”
On the P, the professor admitted bafflement. But among his theories is that it relates to a phrase used in late-Christian Ireland of someone who was deemed not to be serious, or to make any sense. In this context, said the professor, the subject may have been the aforementioned McCreevy and his decentralisation scheme:
“It’s possible that the P is what people thought he was taking at the time.”