THE DAY IS COLD and bright as I walk up the quiet road through small wet fields edged with hawthorn and gorse bushes. The sky is ice blue; behind me, the road slopes down to the bay, whose green water moves with the quality of mercury, slow and heavy. It is early February in the west of Ireland, and there is the faintest warmth on the sea breeze coming over the bogs. But this is only a lull: winter storms will soon come back with fury.
I turn down the (country lane) and hop an
