I would follow Google Maps through the gates of hell if it told me it was going to shave three minutes off my journey. As concerned as I am about the ‘AI takeover’ and the doom-scrawled graffiti near my house that’s been warning me for years about ‘sleepwalking into a cashless society’, I could never give up the technological advancements of Google Maps. Even when it leads me away from a straightforward national primary route and directs me instead over a boreen with a strip of grass down the middle and the gripping fear that I’m about to meet a combine harvester around the next impossible bend, I thank it for showing me the road less travelled. The houses are large, detached and somewhat unique, yet all carry a similar redbrick aesthetic and period features. The street has a Disneyland vibe, so clean and well kept. During both of my brief recent visits Shrewsbury Road was deserted. I was the only car using it as a delectable rat run, and for about three seconds I worried I had accidentally driven on to private property, and my Nissan Juke was in danger of being caught up in a giant dustpan and brush. I did see one woman walking a little white dog, and I wondered if she was a resident. Does she have a home cinema and a wine cellar? Was she on her way home to bask in the Irish holy grail: an indoor swimming pool? Is she related to the Seans, Dereks, Diarmuids, Dermots and Deirdres who join the ambassadors behind the electric gates, manicured gardens and crunchy driveways? I was embarrassingly adult when I realised just how many wealthy people exist in Ireland. Growing up in bungalow bliss in rural Kildare the landscape was dotted with the occasional mansion or walled estate, all noted as belonging to foreign horsey people or Rolling Stones. I assumed there were maybe 20 really rich guys, and everyone else was more or less like me and my family: both parents working for modest incomes, one second-hand car and a week’s holiday a year to a B&B in Cork or Wexford with all five in one room. Our lives were relatively untouched by the Celtic Tiger and subsequent crash because of an aversion to debt and a dearth of anything to invest and lose. It wasn’t until I first laid eyes on pockets of south Co Dublin that my blissful ignorance was shattered and I realised, oh, there are tonnes of rich people. Postcode after postcode of large houses, desirable locations, multi-car driveways, holiday homes. The poshest people I’d known were the ones who’d done Leaving Certificate grinds at “The Institute”, but there were people out there who’d been in private school since junior infants. My mind was blown. Shrewsbury Road represents the upper echelons of these fairytale rich people. I can’t fathom what their lives are like. If there’s a neighbourhood WhatsApp, what do they text about? Gardener recommendations and Hermes scarves that are only going to go in the bin unless someone wants to take them? Do the tycoons of property, business, aviation, telecoms, the ambassadors, and the benefactors of generational wealth worry about pensions and mortgage payments and next year’s health insurance premium? They say money can’t buy happiness but I have to say, when Google Maps brings me down millionaires’ row, I can for a moment picture myself floating in the indoor pool, with one fridge for Fanta and one for a fancy Portuguese wine I haven’t even heard of yet, and I suspect I’d be fairly thrilled with my lot.