Pedalling into politics

Perhaps it is not a good idea to call Dervla Murphy ‘redoubtable’. She is a strident anti-militarist and might not enjoy being given the sort of name that could so easily belong to an old dreadnought or hunter-killer submarine. But the 71-year-old cycling grandmother can hardly be thought of as anything less. While half the population of her age retreat into a world of sheltered accommodation and televised snooker, she has opted instead to pedal against the steep mountain inclines of the Balkans. Needless to say, the terrain proves to be by no means the most arduous or dangerous part of the odyssey.

Like anyone who has witnessed the humanitarian disaster of that part of the world over the last decade, Dervla Murphy has some strong views about the politics that underscored it. It should be said from the first that she mourns the death of the Yugoslav state. ‘Of course in Tito-land there were stresses, prejudices, corruptions and inequalities,’ she fleetingly concedes, ‘but so there are today in the world’s most respected democracies and at least Yugoslavia’s inequalities were fewer and milder.’