The Sweeping Melancholy of Eastern Ireland
Diarmaid
Rankin shows us castles and churches, tombs and monasteries
and long-forgotten forts. As an aside, the 40-year-old chronicles
his own ruins. "That was my father's iron yard," he
points to a rusted and derelict wall midriver. "Here was
my aunt's cottage. Her helper was a bit simple, but Mae just
instinctively knew when someone wanted something. No need for
words."
Vines
tug at the mortar chunks. The scene is forlorn: surely a home
abandoned centuries - not years - ago? But the women lived right
here in the Mourne Mountains, not three decades past. [READ]
Journey From One End of Ireland to the Other
It
used to be that visitors to Ireland would stay in the south
or northwest of the island and leave Northern Ireland for
more hearty adventurers. Seldom in decades past did travelers
choose to traverse both regions in one visit, apprehensive
of how things might appear to soldiers manning the checkpoints.
Those
concerns are a thing of the past (there are no more checkpoints)
since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and I discovered recently
how easy it is now to journey from one to the other. I joined
three other women to cycle and hike along Northern Ireland's
Antrim coast and County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland and
found the biggest challenge was not the political environment
but the weather, natch. [READ]
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