Meathman's Diary: 21st century motorway monsters

What do Navan, London and Los Angeles have in common? Apart from their extortionate rents and they were all home to Pierce Brosnan at one stage or another, they were all built on rivers. Of course, they’re not unique in this regard as over the centuries most towns and cities around the world were established as a result of their proximity to rivers.

As roads gradually replaced rivers as the primary method of transport, motorways began to spring up connecting the one-time river towns.

When motorways were developed in Ireland at the turn of the last century their main function was to ease traffic congestion in Irish towns but as these were bypassed they were gradually turned into ghost towns as by cutting out the passing traffic they cut out the footfall that was needed for the local economy to survive.

However, over the last decade, a new phenomenon has occurred in Ireland as the motorways have given life to a new civilisation of their own: the motorway service station.

Anyone who had driven in the UK or US in the past 30-40 years would have been familiar with the concept but they’ve only made an imprint in the Irish market in the last ten years.

They started as modest service stops on the side of our highways but since the middle of the last decade, they’ve become the looming, behemoths that we see today. Made famous by links to former American presidents and often named after shapes, letters and a certain coloured fruit they were once a location for grab-and-go petrol and a pastry they’ve developed into something akin to a small town.

On a recent drive ‘down the country’ I stopped in one where I limited my purchases to diesel and a doughnut but had I wanted to I could have purchased fast food from one of several outlets, garden furniture, fresh eggs from a vending machine, a paddling pool or could have gone to play in the adjoining playground had the desire come over me.

Not to mention it was bigger than most rural villages and was home to twenty parked artic lorries, with enough space for twenty more.

The question is what next for these service stations? In the future will we have a Navan service station and luxury hotel? Ashbourne diesel docks and apartment blocks? Trim truck stop and university? Will they stop being limited by existing settlements, soon give birth to their own urban areas, complete with elected officials and municipal districts and eventually declare themselves independent states?

With more of these monstrosities popping up all over the country it looks like they’re here to stay, but forgive me if I start bringing my flask of coffee with me from now on.