The road to nowhere at the Phoenix Park Racecourse

Spotted this one while out for a scenic walk down the Navan Road during the weekend. 

You will see the sign saying "local access" to denote a road to the northern section of the Phoenix Park Racecourse development which was never started, let alone completed.   You can get a better idea from the aerial shot below, taken from the chopper this morning while on the way to Spar for a carton of milk.  No, that's sooo 2006 - it was Google Maps, actually. 

The Irish Follies Trust quotes Mariga Guinness as claiming that Ireland had "more follies to the acre than anywhere else in the world".   I think she might have been referring to the decorative variety of building, without any obvious utility, many of which were built to provide employment for the poor during the famine years. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines such buildings thus:

"A costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park." 

Here is an example of one at Leixlip:

Then there is the alternative definition, perhaps more appropriate for Irish follies such as the development above, and the numerous ghost estates blighting the country:

"Lack of good sense; foolishness:  A foolish act, idea, or practice"

We definitely have more of those than anywhere else in the world.


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