As a frequent commuter I watched for years, with more than a passing interest, the development of the new M18 that links Ennis and Limerick and onward to Dublin via its bigger sister, the M7. I thank God for the genius and skill of engineers and builders who have given us miles of wide, pothole-free surface and have shortened the journey considerably. There’s also the occasional piece of sometimes puzzling Public Art along the wayside in limestone, chrome or painted metal. Amongst these are a hefty limestone bull near Junction 25 for Nenagh that any farmer would be proud to take to Mart; psychedelic bovine ‘cut-outs’ stand high on a bank near Junction 29 for Limerick – no self-respecting farmer would take these anywhere.
I would not have guessed that the colourful ‘windmill’ shapes in Kildare are St. Bridget’s crosses.
I occasionally feel a tinge of nostalgia for the old road. There, any encounter was possible in the early morning or late afternoon: herds of heavy Friesian cows ambling home with tomorrow’s milk, school buses laden with young scholars hungry for home at day’s end, bulky farm machinery on seemingly purposeful but dangerously speedy trips, neighbour chatting to neighbour over gates and hedges or leaning on a bicycle, dogs stretched comfortably taking the sun by a roadside wall or chasing passing traffic. One got close up glimpses into front gardens, farmyards and fields of sheep and cattle.
Today, all that interesting human activity is at a remove. There are no traffic jams, no traffic lights, no slowing down to get through Toomevara or even Moneygal! President Obama could hardly have made that famous visit had not the M7 left it behind in a quiet hamlet. I’m intrigued by the thirty major Junctions between Dublin and Limerick and the eighty-plus new bridges under which I travel unhindered, not a farm gate in sight.
Those who go over these bridges are crossing a motorway in safety – people whose very lives were rerouted to make the M7 possible. The new bridges enable the smooth surfaced motorway cut a swathe through the countryside; there are easy exits via new slip roads providing a link to the old ‘main road’ for anyone who wants to spend the time or simply must get off the treadmill for reasons personal, domestic, business or pleasure. I’m comforted to know these ‘old’ roads still exist even if I’m reluctant to use them anymore unless absolutely necessary.
Instead, I motor on and recall that wonderful Robert Waller novel The Bridges of Madison County. As I imagine the old covered bridges of 1960’s Iowa I promise myself to bring the camera some day and photograph every bridge from that wonderful feat that takes me under the Shannon right to Ireland’s own ‘spaghetti junction’ at the famous Red Cow. I imagine changing roles with the novel’s lonely Francesca and taking on that of Robert, the National Geographic photographer. Somehow, I can’t find a county in which I might even imagine the re-creation of the romance of that book; while the new bridges could be said to be ‘covered’, the speed at which traffic proceeds would banish even the most ardent romantic.
Besides, there is no-one to swop roles with Francesca.
Images of famous bridges of the world come flooding in and I imagine as I approach yet another sleek, concrete structure of clean, functional lines how almost identical all these bridges are that link green fields with green fields, not a river in sight. As Amy Lowell said in her poem Roads: “I know a country laced with roads …They weave like a shuttle between broad fields’. How would it be if, at Junction 7 for Kildare Village, there were a Ponte Vecchio without the river – that wonderful medieval bridge across the Arno River in Florence with its many Jewellers’ shops; or the Rialto – one of the five hundred bridges of that City of Bridges, Venice, also known as the City of Canals, where island is linked to island.
In my mind I cross San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, London Bridge. Dublin’s newest bridges also come to mind, especially the most recent and most spectacular, the Samuel Beckett Bridge of 2009 – fabricated in Rotterdam, transported, and eventually floated up the River Liffey.
Once I reach the Limerick Tunnel under the Shannon River I know I’ll emerge, 675 meters later, on its north bank, home in County Clare. I reflect on the day’s Mercy gathering and Chapter 2012. We heard of ‘Harvest One’ and ‘Harvest Two’ – the harvested, or gathered-together outcomes of many ‘conversations’ as we chapter together at this time on our Mercy journey. We’ve been over and under thousands of bridges, much water has flowed, many obstacles have been overcome, many difficulties have been borne, doubts have been faced. Plans have been shaped, lived and reshaped. Our Chapter 2012 symbolic image contains a few bridges too where the streams of conversations about life, mission, ministry, and the quest for God narrow, concentrate and focus – but will, like the road or river go on and on, making connections, linking people, linking cultures, linking dreams and possibilities as we search for a renewed future in God and Mercy.
One day we will all cross that final Bridge to new life hereafter. The journey, like that on the M7 grows shorter, if not easier!
Canice Hanrahan rsm
South Central Province
