I have seen the future of road-traffic management. It’s low-tech and multi-functional, eliminating the need for orange cones, stop-go signs and even traffic lights.
“Sure, we don’t have traffic lights here,” the distillery owner on Ireland’s Achill Island warns visitors on their way in. “We have sheep.”
True enough, doughty wandering Mayo/Connemara black-faced sheep control vehicle speeds in a decidedly hoofs-on fashion throughout the 14,800ha of this, the country’s largest island.
Long accustomed to roaming free under a local “shared commonage” grazing tradition, the beady-eyed, horned grazers can stare down traffic head on and even stop it purely with the sight of their amply-fleeced bottoms planted unmovingly in the roadway.
Sometimes skittish when approached on foot, they’re remarkably nerveless in the face of anything on wheels. They take their own officious time to trot out of the way – if at all – on elegantly slender black legs, often strobing a rather narked attitude at having their reverie disrupted.
Thus the island’s official speed limits, from 60-100km/h, are subject to ovine override at any time. Though there are accidents from time to time, it appears locals on balance feel the flocks’ traffic-calming prowess makes it worth the risk.
The sheep gravitate to the road and frontage because the tarmac holds warmth, and they’re also apt to visit gardens and shopping precincts for extra variety in their moss, herb, heather and lichen diet, when not yomping up and down the island’s jaw-dropping cliffs.
Their efficacy was stress-tested with the global success of the 2022 movie The Banshees of Inisherin, filmed mostly around Achill’s misty bogs and dramatic beaches. The new influx of foreign tourists now swells the population temporarily in summer from 2400 permanent residents to 10,000 or more. But the sheep-operated traffic system has proved equal to the task – and an extra source of enchantment for many tourists.
Not everyone is sold, however. Last year, the Upper Achill Concerned Property Owners’ Group campaigned to stop free grazing, saying the wandering sheep were an accident hazard and frightened some children. It also reported complaints about their droppings which, admittedly, can be hard to avoid in places.
One farmer was later fined for uncorralled stock, but as is clear from this writer’s leisurely stop-start travels around the island, the wandering has yet to be noticeably curtailed. The sheep remain in charge.
Though their fleece blends into the subtle hues of the bogland, they’re all marked in different-coloured raddle so farmers can keep track of them. There’s no chance of drivers failing to spot a sturdy lavender and aqua rump on the road ahead, or a flank resplendent in carmine and ultramarine, cobalt and apricot, shocking pink and mint, among the many fetching combos.
Even at night, when many fold their legs to hunker right at the road’s toasty edge, their unblinking eyes catch cars’ headlights as effectively as any tarmacked cat’s eyes might.
Their road policing style might be arbitrary and unpredictable, but it’s doubtful most drivers would find it any more so than that of the humans who do it elsewhere.
Deeper studies would almost certainly show that the psychology behind their success also makes the sheep valuable road workers. People slow up mainly because no one wants to kill or injure such benign creatures, which is surely a more humanely engaging way to foster safe driving than punitive speed cameras and radars, let alone dumbly insolent orange cones.
It should, however, be noted that Achill lamb is also a culinary delicacy.
Any visitor able to bring themselves to dine on this should really, for authenticity and decency, do so in the middle of the road while inconveniencing traffic.
