Is it possible in this day and age to have a playground without health and safety warnings? Apparently not in Ireland, in any case.
The framers of the wretched notice at the children’s playground (actually a bureaucrat’s playground) were presumably trying to prevent harm to the children by excluding all that might result in an injury to them, as well as imposing a certain orderliness on them. Ireland having secularised late by comparison with other western societies, it has taken with a vengeance to the new trinity of values: not faith, hope and charity, but wealth, health and safety. No doubt secularisation has brought many benefits to the country, but not a better sense of humour.