Drive time

YOU don’t want to be in traffic just after six. That’s when it is at its worst, thousands of commuters trying to squeeze through Dublin’s exit corridor or becomes an unmoving mass of metal, a cavalcade of purring engines.

You pass the time, attempting to dilute your frustration with an ear cocked to current affairs discussion. You don’t want to be heading for Dunshaughlin around six. The 25-minute journey can, on the slowest moving days, become an hour and half of sighs and chewed fingernails. The phone calls Eamon Barry gets before any training session proves it.

Some of the lads might be 10 or 15 minutes late. Barry understands. He has to travel in that traffic himself, from Store Street where he is stationed, to Dunshaughlin, where he dons a track-suit for his miracle-working.