INVITED TO A CONCERT the other night in a place called Beaulieu House, I was cutting it fine for the 8pm start. But it was a short trip - just north of the river Boyne, apparently. And the directions were simple: take the M1 as far as the N51 exit for Drogheda; then left at the town's outskirts into Cross Lane, then the R166 for two miles, where there would be a brown heritage sign for the house. So I set out full of confidence, untroubled by my lack of a satnav or even a map, writes FRANK MCNALLY
The confidence waned a little when I saw the first exit-sign for Drogheda, which didn't have a road number attached. There was reason to doubt that this was the N51. But I was still cutting it fine - it was 7.52pm now - and there was no time for hesitation. It was a road into Drogheda, after all, and Drogheda was not big. So I plunged off the motorway, still optimistic about making the start of the concert.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled in on the side of the old Dublin road, already defeated by suburban Drogheda's sprawling vastness. There was no sign of Beaulieu House, or Cross Lane, or the R166 anywhere. So it being a cultural emergency, I rang the local Garda station, with apologies, and identified my co-ordinates. The officer on duty had never heard of Beaulieu House, but he knew where Cross Lane was: which, as he added cheerfully, was nowhere near me.
I followed his directions and, several missed concert highlights later, reached Cross Lane. It would now be a simple matter to find the R166, I thought. Wrong again: there were no road numbers anywhere. So falling back upon the innate sense of direction that, despite experience, all men think they have, I took the route most likely out of town.
Rural Ireland in mid-June is as far removed from the Sahara desert as you can imagine; and yet it has some of the same capacity to disorientate. Instead of unforgiving sands, it has oppressive greenery, that seems to encroach from all sides, especially when you're looking for a road-sign.
Maybe there were signs everywhere on that road and they were just camouflaged, because the hedgerows are growing faster than the council can cut them. But the further I went out of Drogheda, the less I knew where I was, or where I was going. I was beginning to experience mirages, too. Several times a brown sign loomed in the distance, but closer up it would turn out to be a tree-trunk, or a cow.
Apart from the disorientation, the lack of signs at Irish crossroads can be unnerving, like the silence that falls in certain pubs when a stranger walks in. It's as if the crossroads is waiting to find out who you are and where you come from, before it's prepared to give you any information about the locality.
After a series of such silences, my nerve failing, I was ready to endure man's ultimate indignity, and ask directions from the next person I met. But that's another thing about rural Ireland these days: you don't meet many people, because nobody walks anymore. So it was with relief rather than humility that at last I saw farmer crossing the road and formally surrendered to him.
He treated my initial question ("Is this the R166?") with bemusement, as if I was a Japanese tourist who didn't speak English.
Maybe it was the R166, he implied; but it was known locally as the "Ballymakenny Road". So I made my plight clearer, and he treated it with due solemnity. He knew where Beaulieu Cross was, if not the house. And after careful consideration, he unveiled a plan to get me there.
"I'm sending you to Termonfeckin," he announced gravely. This would involve turning around, taking a left at the first cross-roads, then a right after a hump-back bridge, another right at a T-junction, and on for a couple of miles until, if I wasn't lost again, I would be at Beaulieu Cross. I could take my chances there.
I thanked him and turned around, but with a slightly sinking heart. It was nearly 9pm now, as I took the first left and headed into the tribal areas of outer Termonfeckin. There were still no brown heritage signs anywhere. And it was not encouraging that on one of the few signs I did see, a local wag had amended the townland's name slightly, to read: "Newtown-Talaban."
fmcnally@irishtimes.com