Motorway to Mordor

2nd Mar 2010

Motorway to Mordor

We absolutely oppose the outrageous proposals unveiled this week to link Cork and Limerick by uninterrupted motorway. A document lodged with An Bord Pleanala on Monday revealed that for approximately €1 billion Cork city and Ireland's answer to Mordor could be linked by a continuous two lane carriageway that would reduce the journey time to less than an hour.

How Limerick will look from the Rebel County

This frightening prospect has raised more than just eyebrows on Leeside and maybe a step too far for Corkonians weary of poor infrastructure planning by the Dublin government. What Corkonian in their right mind would want Limerick to be closer to Cork?

We'd rather be stapled to a bed of nails and covered with a Kerry GAA quilt featuring a smiling Tadhg Kennelly every night than live with the psychological torture that Limerick's social anarchy could arrive on the doorstep of our beautiful city at any moment.

A high speed road like this would hand Limerick's gangsters a new stomping ground for their devious activities as well as providing a lightning fast escape route north for The Treaty City's notoriously evil gangsters.

Before long these people would arrive from the north like gun-firing cowboys entering a picturesque and peaceful town ready to plunder one of the Lonely Planet's Top Ten cities - but instead of puny pistols and fit looking horses Limerick's gangsters will have automatic weapons mounted on overweight piebalds or lowered Honda civics. Is this what we want for our dear city?

We have long argued in this column for the total winding-up of Limerick such has been the disastrous nature of the project. This winding-up can manifest itself as simple satire to get up their noses or an actual High Court injunction against Limerick's continued existence. We favour both.

PROC supports the proposed extension of the Clare county bounds south to amalgamate the remains of Limerick city into the Banner county's jurisdiction and the rest of Limerick county can be sold off to pay for NAMA and an operation to have a tape recorder surgically attached to Willie O'Dea that is powered by the movement of his moustache hair.

Perpetually lacking in good news over the last few decades Limerick began referring to itself as The Treaty City when authorities in the city finally provided 'treated' drinking water for their citizens. The concrete roadside troughs from which Limerickonians drink and take baths are known as 'treats' and were installed shortly after the Heineken Cup homecoming of 2006.

Use the billion to build a wall between Cork and Limerick instead.

Before this huge advance in sanitation, the county is believed to have relied heavily on the acid rain that falls almost continuously on the misfortunately dull county. Precipitation used for drinking was often collected by individual households in cider cans left outside every night.

It is believed that some Limerick people have evolved brains that enable them to get high from consuming acid rain. This is why locals gleefully embrace the extremely damp grey climate.

One compromise on the motorway proposal might be to secure the county bounds near the proposed motorway with a large 'Peace Wall' whose gates would be manned by heavily armed Corkonians with hurleys.

Those travelling south would be forced to wait for up to 30 minutes while they are subjected to health and security checks thus maintaining the existing journey time to discourage Limerick people from travelling to Cork.

Only hurling boss and proud Corkman Justin McCarthy would be allowed to bypass the queue as he journeys to Limerick to train their hurling team. And by God/Christy Ring do they need it!

Having been humiliated by the Rebels last Saturday night by nine points (in Mordor itself) it's clear that the highly-experienced coach has his work cut out for him.

Ambassador McCarthy has already completed the partial taming of Waterford's wild hurlers (although Davie Fitz is quickly undoing the Passage West legend's good work) and is now attempting to do the same with Limerick as he successfully did in the Deise, Banner and Antrim whom he steered to an Intermediate All-Ireland title.

Corkonians have no interest in getting closer to this disappointing neighbour - the sympathetic gesture of allowing them host important Munster rugby matches is as generous as we can be.

This dreadful project to reduce the journey time between the cities will cost a staggering €1 billion - money that would be better spent elsewhere. And by elsewhere we obviously mean in Cork.


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