The mystery of the ‘Dead Tiger’ roundabout

As I drove out of Galway on last week’s Blue Bag trip I noticed that there were traffic cones at Dead Tiger Roundabout. Between Oranmore and Clarinbridge, the roundabout serves as a stunningly apt monument to greed and excess. Created to serve a housing estate that was never built, it goes nowhere and offers no purpose.

Hopefully those cones meant that it was finally being removed.

Watching the rise and demise of the Celtic Tiger was painful for me, as I’d already lived through the construction-based Boom and Bust economy of Thatcher’s Britain. The Irish had never had it so good, embracing the lure of monetary wealth with the fresh gusto of a puppy trying to catch a bee.

So now, after the sting and the crash, beyond ghost estates built on flood plains, there lurks this circular mausoleum to Mammon. Doubtless behind its creation smoulder disputes between developers, Councils, banks and builders, but to you and me it’s a pointless waste of time and money.

For years I have dreamed of creeping up in the dead of night and mounting a large sign, declaring ‘Dead Tiger Roundabout’, above which I’d place a full colour cut-out of a very large very dead green tiger, all four paws pointed straight to the sky.

At least giving it a name would offer some purpose to the roundabout. Maybe as we drove past the sign and giant upturned cat, we’d smile and think back, possibly learning something of our own absurd natures.

It didn’t help when they awarded the pointless roundabout a signpost, all flashing digital lights and colours, warning: Slow Down – Roundabout Ahead.

We all mindlessly follow all the other traffic who have no choice but to go straight on, wondering whether we should indicate, before deciding that there’s no bloody point.

Has anyone spared even a moment for the roundabout itself? How do you think it might feel to be a roundabout that nobody needs? Unless utterly lost, nobody will ever drive all the way around it. How much existential angst might a roundabout with no turnoffs suffer?

Maybe by the time I return to Galway the depressingly stupid carousel will be gone. As I drive up towards it I notice that yellow slow-down stripes have been freshly painted across the roads and – no, surely not! – new concrete pavements have been built around it, so that anyone who is leaving the housing estate that doesn’t exist can walk around the roundabout that goes nowhere.

How they can justify spending yet more money on such a pointless waste of time?

Then again, maybe such an investment in futility was inevitable.

For Charlie’s thoughts on whether time is money see this week’s Tribune here