Travelling Postbox
Observed in Raheny, Dublin, over the first half of 2006
This is the building that formerly housed the Raheny Post Office. It was very conveniently situated, the staff knew their customers and looked after them in many different ways.
There was a postbox outside the post office which complemented two others on the Howth Road; one at the northern extremity of the village (at the Old Shieling Hotel) and the other at the southern extremity (outside Smyth's the butchers, and across the road from the Supevalu "complex").
At the beginning of 2006, Barry, the postmaster retired, and his function was up for grabs. The winning bid envisaged a new location for the post office: right in the middle of the already overstretched and harassed Supervale store. The post office was duly squeezed into the limited space available and the aggro level within the store continued to rise as the post office queue obstructed shoppers and, because of the space constraint, customer privacy was reduced.
God Bless the Powers that Be.
But this is not the point of my story. The postbox which had been located outside the old post office was summarily moved to a location outside the new one. This was done without any regard for those from whom the service was being withdrawn and without any account being taken of existing facilities at the new location. There were now two fine post boxes across the road from each other at the new location, while the old folk in the complex behind the former post office were obliged to walk the longer distance to the Old Shieling or to Supervalu.
There was general annoyance and anger at local level and a petition to An Post was organised. Elected representatives from the locality, in both the local authority and national parliament, jumped on the bandwagon. The decision was soon reversed and a victory claimed for local democracy over the faceless bureaucracy. The reappearance of the postbox on its former site was eagerly awaited.
And surely enough, one morning a postbox appeared. And it was not the old postbox but the one that had been outside the butcher's from time immemorial. On the old site? Not at all! Across the road, in a most inconvient location, and on a green patch spoiling the residents' sign for Rathmore Park and St. Assam's.
Now why did they do that? Did they forget to bring a pneumatic drill to penetrate the concrete they had so thoughtfully used to landscape the hole left by the former postbox? Unlikely, as they had to dig the new one out of the concrete outside the butcher's.
Or, is this bureaucracy's revenge on those who dared to mess them about?
