BLACKBERRY-PICKING Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full, Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. -- Seamus Heaney, born Mossbawn, Derry 1939

Snippet: The Kewpie Doll was the creation of Rose Cecil O'NEILL (1874-1944), a gifted artist who introduced the Kewpies in 1909 as a cartoon in "Ladies' Home Journal." The Kewpies were cherubic characters whose name derived from "Cupid." They proved immensely popular and soon commanded page-long adventures in women's magazines. O'Neill designed a hugely popular Kewpie Doll that she patented in 1913. All told, she earned over a million dollars in royalties before the Kewpie craze dwindled in the 1930s.

MINT It looked like a clump of small dusty nettles Growing wild at the gable of the house Beyond where we dumped our refuse and old bottles: Unverdant ever, almost beneath notice. But, to be fair, it also spelled promise And newness in the back yard of our life As if something callow yet tenacious Sauntered in green alleys and grew rife. The snip of scissor blades, the light of Sunday Mornings when the mint was cut and loved: My last things will be first things slipping from me. Yet let all things go free that have survived. Let the smells of mint go heady and defenceless Like inmates liberated in that yard. Like the disregarded ones we turned against Because we'd failed them by our disregard. -- Seamus Heaney

A BRIGID'S GIRDLE Last time I wrote I wrote from a rustic table Under magnolias in South Carolina As blossoms fell on me, and a white gable As cleaned-lined as the prow of a white liner Bisected sunlight in the sunlit yard. I was glad of the early heat and the first quiet I'd had for weeks. I heard the mocking bird And a delicious, articulate Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north Where you faced the music and the ache of summer And earth's foreknowledge gathered in the earth. Now it's St. Brigid's Day and the first snowdrop In County Wicklow, and this is a Brigid's Girdle I'm plaiting for you, an airy fairy hoop (Like one of those old crinolines they'd trindle), Twisted straw that's lifted in a circle To handsel and to heal, a rite of spring As strange and lightsome and traditional As the motions you go through going through the thing. -- Seamus Heaney

BIO: Headstrong, beautiful Margaret MITCHELL, born in Atlanta, GA in 1900, was a fifth-generation Atlantan, daughter of a prominent attorney and a suffragist, in a family that relished retelling stories of their ancestors' illustrious wartime experiences. She was to fall in love with Lieutenant Clifford HENRY, a Harvard man who would lose his life in France during WWI. Margaret enrolled at Smith College in 1918 and made her Atlanta debut two years later; for that occasion she chose to perform an Apache dance that caused somewhat of a scandal . Mitchell married Red Upshaw, divorcing him a year later and and landed a job with the "Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine," where she wrote under the name Peggy Mitchell. In 1925 she married John R. MARSH, an editor and writer, and one year later while recovering from an ankle injury, and with her husband's help and support, began writing a book of fiction that became "Gone With The Wind, " her novel about the Civil War primari! ly reflecting the view of the Confederacy and with the scene of much of the action being Atlanta. Margaret took the title of the book from a poem by the English poet Ernest DOWSON. Published in 1936, it sold a million copies within six months and won the Pulitzer prize a year later. By the time of her death more than eight million copies had been sold in 40 different countries.and translated into 20 languages as well as Braille. The 1939 film version of the book won the Academy Award and broke all attendance records. The character of Scarlett O'Hara's father was apparently modeled after Mitchell's own plantation-owning grandfather, Thomas FITZGERALD. Plucky, nose-thumbing Mitchell was plagued by arthritis which sometimes confined her to bed. She never wrote another novel and died in an automobile accident in 1949 (apparently hit by a cab while crossing an Atlanta street) having devoted the last decade to volunteer work, primarily in health and education. Sixty years after the film's Atlanta premiere, the "Gone With the Wind Museum opened across from her apartment house (which she affectionately referred to as "the dump") where she wrote much of her story on a Remington portable typewriter .

BIO: Sybil CONNOLLY, who died at 77 in 1998, popularized Irish fabrics like tweed, poplin, lace and linen by softening their colors, their textures and their construction. An exhibition of some of her creations (including fabrics, glass she designed for Tiffany and porcelain) can be found at The Hunt Museum, The Custom House, Limerick, until 22 Sept. 2002. Designs incorporated into her TIFFANY & Co. ceramics and Tipperary Crystal stemware were inspired by 18th century botanical drawings by a Ms. DELANEY. Connolly's success started with a red flannel petticoat, the much-lauded "Irish Washerwoman Look" so popular in NY in the 1950s. Pleated linen and easy elegance remains her indelible emblem, and her legacy is that she opened new avenues for fashion designers. "You have to decide," she once said, "whether you want to create the beautiful or the merely fashionable." Some of her gowns have incorporated overskirts of Carrickmacross lace. The August 1953 issue of "Life" magazine featured a model wearing a white linen evening dress and magnificent red Irish-inspired wool cape of her design. Connolly, described by former Taoiseach Jack LYNCH as a national treasure, was born in Swansea in Wales of an Irish father who was a Waterford insurance salesman, and a Welsh mother. At 17, she went to work in BRADLEYs, the Royal Court dressmakers in London in 1938. She recalled holding the pins at Buckingham Palace for Queen Mary at a time when an apprenticeship in "model gowns" could take three years. On returning to Ireland she joined the Richard ALAN fashion house, where she became a director at the age of 22 and started her own label. But what really made her name and ultimately her fortune was her famous trip on the "Queen Elizabeth" to New York. It was the worst crossing in the ship's history and when the liner finally docked, the press were out in force to greet her. In the ensuing coverage the young Irish designer was swept into the public eye and interest in her clothes propelled her into stardom. She was as famous as the people she dressed - Elizabeth Taylo! r, Merle Oberon, Helena Rubenstein, the Astaires, Jackie KENNEDY, and Jean Kennedy SMITH (who was U. S. ambassador to Ireland). One Ms. Connolly's exquisite wedding dresses was in layered pleated linen decorated with Irish crochet and blue ribbons. Sybil had a wonderful sense of color - she once sent a clematis leaf to a linen mill as a color reference! Today, her pleated linen dresses from the 50s and 60s are harder to come by in auction houses than Dior. Ms. Connolly decorated houses, designed nuns' habits, wrote books on gardening, Irish houses and crafts. Other hobbies and interests included theological research, Irish Georgian architecture and collecting silver. Beautiful examples of her work, to include a stylish daffodil-colored suit with large petal-like collar, can be found in the Sept-Oct 2002 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes."

AN ULSTERMAN I do not like the other sort; They're tricky an' they're sly, An' couldn't look you in the face Whenever they pass by. Still I'll give in that here an' there, You'll meet a decent man; I would make an exception, now, About wee Michael Dan. But, then he's from about the doors, An' lived here all his days, An', mixin' with us in an' out, He's fell into our ways. He pays his debts an' keeps his word An' does the best he can. If only all the Papishes Were like wee Michael Dan! A better neighbour couldn't be. He borrows an' he lends; An' -- bar a while about the Twelfth When him an' me's not friends -- He'll never wait unil he's asked To lend a helpin' han', There's quite a wheen of Protestants I'd swop for Michael Dan. Of course he'd burn me at the stake, I know that very well; An' told me one day to my face I'm not too safe from hell. But when I backed a bill for him He met it like a man. There's sparks of Christianity About wee Michael Dan. So, while I have my private doubts About him reachin' heaven, His feet keep purty near the pad On six days out of seven; An' if it falls within the scope Of God Almighty's plan To save a single Papish soul, I hope it's Michael Dan. -- Lynn Doyle (b. 1875)

THE MAN OF THE NORTH COUNTRIE He came from the North, and his words were few, But his voice was kind and his heart was true; And I knew by his eyes no guile had he, So I married the man of the North Countrie. Oh! Garryowen may be more gay, Than this quiet street of Ballibay; And I know the sun shines softly down On the river that passes my native town. But there's not -- I say it with joy and pride -- Better man than mine in Munster wide; And Limerick town has no happier hearth Than mine has been with my man of the North. I wish that in Munster they only knew The kind, kind neighbours I came unto; Small hate or scorn would ever be Between the South and the North Countrie. -- Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868)

HIGH AND LOW He stumbled home from Clifden fair With drunken song, and cheeks aglow. Yet there was something in his air That told of kingship long ago. I sighed -- and inly cried With grief that one so high should fall so low. He snatched a flower and sniffed its scent, And waved it toward the sunset sky. Some old sweet rapture through him went And kindled in his bloodshot eye. I turned -- and inly burned With joy that one so low should rise so high. -- James H. Cousins (born 1873)

CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west - sun there half an hour high - I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose. The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme. The similitudes of the past and those of the future, The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river, The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them, The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. It avails not, time nor place - distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd, Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd. I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it. It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also. Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! Fly on, sea birds! Fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! We fathom you not - we love you - there is perfection in you also, You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul. Lines from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Walt Whitman born Long Island, NY -- (1819-1829)

1. "Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure, The Galway Line," by Tim Collins, The Collins Press. In the 1850s, while Ireland was still reeling from famine and pestilence, a Catholic parish priest, Fr. Peter DALY and a Manchester businessman, John Orrell LEVER initiated a steamship line between Galway and America. Fr. Day was Chairman of the Galway Town Commissioners and Director of the Galway Gas Company which supplied power and public lighting to the town from as early as 1837. On the board of the Midland & Great Western Railway Co., he saw to it that the Dublin line terminated in the town centre and was completed by the building of a magnificent hotel, in Eyre Square. He built schools and churches and clashed regularly with his ecclesiastical superiors. The Galway line owned 16 ocean-going ships at one time or another and sailed under a red St. George's cross with a gold harp in its centre on a green background. The venture lasted from about 1858 to 1864, carried ! over 30,000 passengers and lost 500,000 pounds, an enormous sum for that time! Mr. Collins has done well by producing the first account of this extraordinary venture, complete with the music and words of the poems and ballads which are almost its sole remains, per book review. P/b. 2. "Every year from Scotland, from Ireland and from Wales young men flock in hundreds to London. They are of all classes, all degrees of education, united in one common aim, that, namely, of making a living...debarred by lack of means from lodgings where the rate of payment is high, and yet compelled to be near the great industrial centres where chance jobs may be easily picked up, they and their families are automatically forced into slum dwellings..." Excerpt, "Irish Migrants in Britain 1815-1914," (2002) edited by Roger Swift, Cork University Press. Many Irishmen and women had a different fate, those "whose brilliant talents often enable them to rise from small posts to places of high emolument and power," Per review, "This is a unique anthology comprising extracts from parliamentary papers, social surveys, letters, newspapers and reminiscences which explore the experiences of Irish emigrants to all parts of rural and urban Britain in this period. Annoted to furthe! r reading. H/b. 3. "W&R Jacob, Celebrating 150 Years of Biscuit Making," by Seamas O Maitiu, The Woodfield Press, Dublin. P/b. The first cracker biscits to appear in Ireland, in 1880, were imports from Marsh and Company, an American firm. These were called "Niagra Crackers" and were sufficiently popular to cause the long-established Dublin biscuit makers W&R JACOB to send young George Jacob to the USA to investigate. Inside five years, Jacob's had their best seller, the "Cream Cracker." The product went to the battle front in huge quantities during WWI. In the course of the Easter rising (1916) their main factory was taken over by a group of rebels under the leadership of Thomas MacDONAGH. Their crackers and their very elaborate biscuit tins are mentioned in the pages of James JOYCE. The first Aer Lingus spare parts were handily housed in a Jacob's tin during the maiden flight of the Iolar in 1936. Jacob's were one of the earliest to use radio advertising, in particular, with th! e format of the sponsor show; for many years their public relations representative, the honey-voiced Ms. Frankie BYRNE, who gave advice to the love-crossed at one o'clock each Tuesday, her sagacity sweetened by an unfading admiration for Frank Sinatra, no other music was permitted on the show.

BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away! Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still. It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear, That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known, To which time will but make thee more dear! Oh the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close, As the sunflower turns to her god when he sets The same look which she turned when he rose! -- Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

AVOCA, CO. WICKLOW Step down from the bridge. A spit of grass points At the confluence. Tree he sat beneath Spoiled for souvenirs, Looks numb as driftwood. A pretty fellow In stone broods over The meeting waters. His words came alive But the music's flow, Like weeds in water. I recall my aunt, my second mother, Singing Tom Moore at the old rectory Harmonium -- "The Last Rose of Summer," "She is Far from the Land" -- her contralto Scoop, the breathy organ, an oil lamp lit. Words and tune met, flowed together in one Melodious river. I drift calmly Between its banks. Sweet vale of Avoca, She is still young, I a child, and our two Hearts like thy waters are mingled in peace. Dublin tradesman's son, Byron's friend, the pet of Whig drawing-rooms. Feted everywhere Everywhere at home, He sang of exile. And death, tailoring Country airs to a Modish elegance. Let the waters jig In a light glitter, So the source run full. -- C. Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate of England

Between the end of the American Revolution and the end of the War of 1812 (1783-1815), some 100,000 to 150,000 Irish immigrants landed in North America. Most were Ulster Presbyterians who came as farmers or artisans. Squeezed by high rents on their land and the collapse of the linen industry due to British free trade policy, more and more Irish looked to America as a place to begin anew. As economic conditions continued to worsen in Ireland, the numbers of immigrants soared. Upwards of one million Irish immigrants crossed the Atlantic between 1815 and 1845. Increasingly (especially after 1830), these immigrants were Catholics hailing from the south and west of Ireland. They were much poorer and brought fewer skills with them compared with their Ulster counterparts. One of the things making immigration to America in this period easier was the increased trade between Ireland and NY and Liverpool and NY. The growth in trade in the 1820s and 1820s encouraged emigration by lowering the cost of passenger travel. England, however, wanted to populate Canada (British North America) rather than America with Irish immigrants and passed a series of Passenger Acts that made emigration to America far more expensive and inconvenient. For example - heavy surcharges increased the price of passage to NY to 4 to 5 pounds versus just 15 shillings for transit to Canada. In addition, ships bound for Canada left from every Irish port, while most bound for America left from Liverpool. Still, limited opportunity in Canada led many an Irish family to book cheap passage to Canada and then walk to Boston. Such a trend accounts for the high percentage of Irish who settled in New England in the pre-famine era. While large members of Irish immigrants settled in cities like Philadelphia and New York, several Irishmen and Irishwomen distinguished themselves in the early history of the West. Catherine O'HARE, for example, a native of Ulster, made history in 1802 when she bore, with the help of Indian midwives, the first known child of European descent west of the Rocky Mountains. One of the earliest contributions to the future city of Chicago was Irish-born John WHISTLER. In 1803, he oversaw the construction of Ft. Dearborn, and upon its completion served as its first commander. Joe WALKER served as the first sheriff of Independence, Missouri, a town he helped found. He also surveyed the Santa Fe Trail and guided the first wagon train to California. Thomas DAUGHERTY and Hugh MENAUGH accompanied Zebulon Montgomery PIKE (of Lamberton, NJ) in 1806 during his exploration of the Rocky Mountains. Many of the best scouts in the early West were Irish. -- Excerpts, "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History," Edward T. O'Donnell (2002)

MY WISHES Oh! Could I acquire my fullest desire. To mould my own life, were it given; I would be like the sage, who in happy old age. Disowns every link -- but with heaven. An acre or two, as my wants would be few, Could supply quite enough for my welfare; In that scope I would deem my power supreme, And acknowledge no king but -- myself there. The soil of this spot, the best to be got, Should furnish me fruit -- and a choice store; Be sheltered and warm from rain and from storm, And favoured with sunshine and moisture. My home should abound, and my table be crowned With comfort, but not ostentation; The music of mirth should hum round my hearth, And books be my night's recreation: Delightful retreat, in simplicity sweet! A wood and a streamlet should bound it; And the birds when I wake, from each bower and brake, Should pour their wild melodies round it. This streamlet midst flowers, and murmuring bowers, In the shade of rich fruits should meander; While the brisk finny race, o'er its sunshiny face, Should leap -- flit -- and sportively wander. These joys -- yet one more might enliven my store, Redouble each comfort and pleasure; A wife, of such truth, such virtue and youth, That her smiles would be more than a treasure. Let nineteen, and no more, to my twenty-four, Be the scale of her years to the letter; Then a babe every Easter, I think won't molest her, No -- I warrant she'll like me the better. -- Patrick HEALY (18th c.), Translated by John D'Alton Note - race/strong, flowing water

REMEMBERING CON MARKIEVICZ Child running wild in woods of Lissadell: Young lady from the Big House, seen In a flowered dress, gathering wild flowers: Ascendancy queen Of hunts, house-parties, practical jokes -- who could foretell (Oh fiery shade, impetuous bone) Where all was regular, self-sufficient, gay Their lovely hoyden lost in a nation's heroine? Laughterless now the sweet demesne, And the gaunt house looks blank on Sligo Bay A nest decayed, an eagle flown. The Paris studio, your playboy Count Were not enough, nor Castle splendour And fame of horsemanship. You were the tinder Waiting a match, a runner tuned for the pistol's sound, Impatient shade, long-suffering bone. In a Balally cottage you found a store Of Sinn Fein papers. You read -- maybe the old sheets can while The time. The flash lights up a whole Ireland which you have never known before, A nest betrayed, its eagles gone. The road to Connolly and Stephen's Green Showed clear. The great heart which defied Irish prejudice, English snipers, died A little not have shared a grave with the fourteen. Oh fiery shade, intransigent bone! And when the Treaty emptied the British jails, A haggard woman returned and Dublin went wild to greet her. But still it was not enough: an iota Of compromise, she cried, and the Cause fails. Nest disarrayed, eagles undone. Fanatic, bad actress, figure of fun -- She was called each. Ever she dreamed, Fought, suffered for a losing side, it seemed (The side which always at last is seen to have won), Oh fiery shade and unvexed bone. Remember a heart impulsive, gay and tender, Still to an ideal Ireland and its real poor alive. When she died in a pauper bed, in love All the poor of Dublin rose to lament her. A nest is made, an eagle flown. -- C. Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of England Note - Lovely Constance Gore-Booth (Countess Markievicz) the eldest daughter of an Anglo-Irish baronet, had been privately educated at Lissadel, the family home in Co. Sligo. She was presented at Court in 1887 and was thoroughly at home in the world of balls. Then in 1900 she married a Polish Count, settled in Dublin in 1903 and began to move towards feminism, socialism and extreme nationalism, much to the distress of early admirers such as Yeats. In the 1916 rising she fought with the Irish Citizen Army and initially was condemned to death. In the 1918 General Election she became the first woman MP but declined to take her seat, in accordance with Sinn Fein policy. Imprisoned again during the war of independence, "the rebel countess" completed her long journey from her background by branding the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 a betrayal of republican hopes.

LAND The boundary stone, The balk, fence or hedge Says on one side, "I own," On the other "I acknowledge." The small farmer carved His children rations. He died. The heart was halved, Quartered, fragmented, apportioned: To the sons, a share Of what he'd clung to By nature, plod and care -- His land, his antique land-hunger. Many years he ruled, Many a year sons Followed him to oat-field, Pasture, bog, down shaded boreens. Turf, milk, harvest -- he Grew from earth also His own identity Firmed by the seasons' come-and-go. Now at last the sons, Captive though long-fledged, Own what they envied once -- Right men, the neighbours acknowledge. -- C. Day-Lewis, Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate of England

The itinerant piper traveled from town to town, bringing music and pleasure to all who heard - a feeling eloquently expressed in Seumas O'Sullivan's poem, "A Piper," from "Verses: Sacred and Profane," 1908. "A Piper in the street today, Set up, and tuned, and started to play, And away, away, away on the tide Of his music we started; on every side Doors and windows were opened wide, And men left down their work and came, And women with petticoats coloured like flame, And little bare feet that were blue with cold, Went dancing back to the age of gold, And all the world went gay, went gay, For half an hour in the street today."

NOCTURNE The blade of a knife Is tapped gently on an oak table Waves are sobbing in coves Light bleeds on the sky's rim >From dusk till dawn Petrels fly in from the ocean Wings beating on stone Quick vibrations of notes throats tongues Under silverweed calling and calling Louder cries cut the air They rise from a pit Complaints are retched up and lost A solo tune Is dying with passion For someone out there to come quickly Come back come back I'm here here here This burrow this wall this hole Ach who kept you? where've you been? There there there It's all over over over -- Richard Murphy

Although her father still called her a girl, Bridie was thirty-six. She was tall and strong; the skin of her fingers and her palms were stained, and harsh to touch. The labour they'd experienced had found its way into them, as though juices had come out of vegetation and pigment out of soil; since childhood she'd torn away the rough scotch grass that grew each spring among her father's mangolds and sugar beet; since childhood she'd harvested potatoes in August, her hands daily rooting in the ground she loosened and turned. Wind had toughened the flesh of her face, sun had browned it; her neck and nose were lean, her lips touched with early wrinkles. But on Saturday nights Bridie forgot the scotch grass and the soil. In different dresses she cycled to the dance-hall, encouraged to make the journey by her father. "Doesn't it do you good, girl?" he'd say, as though he imagined she begrudged herself the pleasure. "Why wouldn't you enjoy yourself?" She'd cook him his tea and then he'd settle down with the wireless, or maybe a Wild West novel. In time, while still she danced, he'd stoke the fire up and hobble his way upstairs to bed. The dance-hall, owned by Mr. Justin Dwyer, was miles from anywhere, a long building by the roadside with treeless boglands all around and a gravel expanse in front of it. On pink pebbled cement its title was painted in an azure blue that matched the depth of the background shade yet stood out well, unfussily proclaiming "The Ballroom of Romance." Above these letters four coloured bulbs -- in red, green, orange and mauve -- were lit at appropriate times, an indication that the evening rendezvous was open for business. Only the facade of the building was pink, the other walls being a more ordinary grey. And inside, except for pink swing-doors, everything was blue. -- William Trevor, from "The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories," 1972. (I believe the dance hall was located in Co. Leitrim).