Unsuspecting motorists may chance upon a huge crowd of villagers holding up the traffic to chase a cast iron ball along lush winding lanes amid cheers and raucous shouts.
"The course is a mile-and-a-half and the player who completes it in the least number of shots is the winner," says roadbowling fan Seamus O'Tuama.
His description is a beguilingly simple one for a sport which over the centuries has built up its own language, folklore and a series of competitions at local, national and international level.
"The rules are the easy part. Hurling the bowl at high speed, lofting it over trees and even houses, spinning it right or left to attune to the curve of the road and playing it with pinpoint accuracy through a gallery of a few thousand anxious supporters are a little more difficult," O'Tuama said.
"These are the things that thrill bowling fans and allow them to forget that their stadium is sometimes used for more mundane purposes."
The sport is based in County Cork in southeast Ireland and County Armagh in Northern Ireland. The King of the Roads national championship, held in early October every year, is one of the major meetings in the bowler's calendar.
This time the two favorites were police sergeant Bill Daly, reigning King of the Roads, and out-of-work lorrydriver James Buckley, current all-Ireland champion, both from County Cork. No bowler from Armagh has won the trophy in its eleven years of competition.
Buckley, 28, took the title this year.
The coveted prize of 1,000 Irish pounds ($1,600) was donated by the local bowling club and sponsor.
More than 2,000 spectators bet 4,000 Irish pounds officially on the King of the Roads final, not including informal betting while the contest was under way.
Only birdsong interrupted the hushed silence after the "road shower," who is similar to a golfer's caddy, had decided how the next shot should be played. The player then ran to a chalk mark on the road (known as the "tip" in Cork and the "butt" in Armagh) and, straining every last muscle and sinew, swung his arm and rolled or bounced the bowl along the ground, scattering the admiring and fearless throng of spectators ahead.
In Cork, graceful movements are so closely associated with the game that any young man who is handsome and fit may be described as having "the style of a roadbowler."
Donald Gribben, the Honorary Secretary of the Armagh Bowling Club, said there were significant differences between the Armagh version of the game and that played in Cork.
"The Armagh bowler bowls underhand and would be deemed to be more skilful on the corners, whereas the Cork people do a 360-degree turn of the arm and their game is based more on force. Armagh bowlers also take a longer run and leap into the air as they bowl," Gribben said.
Road bowling in mainland Europe began in 1972, Gribben added.
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