SNIPPET: Per Seamus MARTIN, contributor to J. J. LEE's "Irish Counties"/Salamander Books Ltd./1997," (one of my very favorites) -- "At Powerscourt in Enniskerry in Co. Wicklow, a mere 12 miles (19 km) from the bustling centre of Dublin, the pointed Sugarloaf Mountain provides a perfect backdrop for the man-made lake with its fountain, its terraces and its statues of Pegasus, with the effect that the gardens appear to lead naturally and seamlessly to the true countryside. No line of division can be perceived. Nowhere else in Ireland could this have been possible; certainly not in the ruggedness of the Atlantic coast where the contrast between the gentility of the 18th-century Anglo-Irish landscapers and the savage grandeur of the terrain would have been impossible to reconcile. But Wicklow is the 'Garden of Ireland.' Its scenery is naturally graduated; the great massif slopes gently to the sea on the east and to the Central Plain on the west. Here, there are no great cliffs battered by the ocean's rage, no deep inlets, no craggy shores, but instead sloping pastures filled with black-faced sheep ushered from pasture to pasture by the slender-faced Wicklow collie. Where Wicklow reaches the sea there are long beaches, some of them, such as the three-mile (5 km) strand on Brittas Bay, crowded at weekends, because of their proximity to Dublin, but others, known to a few, virtually empty whatever the weather and whatever the day of the week. Wicklow, the county town, is also a Viking foundation and takes its name from that of the 9th century settlement, "Vikingalo." Now, long after the northern warriors have departed into history, Wicklow is a small port and a seaside town set in gentle countryside. Rugged beauty does exist, but mainly in the deserted centre, on the crests of Ireland's largest mountain chain, where Dubliners, at weekends, in summer, hew peat, and picnic, and fill their lungs and, on the occasional clear day, view the mountain tops of Snowdonia in Wales. The rest of the county slopes gently to the sea, its great houses and gardens nestling in valleys and glens which were gouged from the land in the harsh Ice Age, but which now provide generous micro-climates in which palms and yuccas are able to flourish, albeit at the northernmost limits of their existence. Another town that was founded by the Vikings, Arklow has lost its former importance as a port and is better known today for its yacht-building." RETURN TO AVONDALE You, my love, encourage me to roll down Parnell's sloping sward. I want to spin forever close to pungent earth reclaiming childhood pleasure, trees centrifuged against the sky. We turn another year, my love, Your 'Bravo' assaults the pounding inner ear as I reel, unfocussed, dizzy, towards snap of tourist lens. I already see the caption 'Mature Irishwoman at Play.' -- Eithne Cavanagh