T his has to be the mother of all poles. Now, I am loathe to prefix it with the word “telegraph” for fear of upsetting the more conservative of our members. But it’s a wooden pole and it’s got wires coming off it so I’m interested (please see Disclaimer).
This was spotted on a quiet back lane a mile or so from the somnolescent Donegal town of Moville.
I spent a good ten minutes underneath it, gazing up at its science-fiction countenance with wonder.
Do the Irish cleverly place their transformer substations so high to be out of reach of rural copper thieves perhaps?
It’s even got a pair of central-heating radiators on it. And a clock, as well as all that space-age gubbins on top. So could it be a misplaced W.I. tea urn, or a bizarre inverse airing cupboard, or an outside heating system – a global warming device perhaps?
But when I spotted the drain tap at the bottom I realised that this was the work of an Irish power engineer moonlighting as a real-ale micro-brewer.
To think that a pint of Donegal’s equivalent of ‘Big Nevs‘ was probably just a stepladder away.