SNIPPET: Roy GREENSLADE of England first visited Co. Donegal in 1971 and states he is as captivated today by the austere beauty as when he first visited the county with the beautiful waterfall at Crannogeboy, near Ardara. At that time he strolled across Ballynass Strand in Falcarragh in a skimpy sweater on a sunny, cloudless day with a biting wind blowing off the sea and, taking shelter in the lee of a rocky outcrop with his friend, Noreen, who had been born in Donegal and raised in Glasgow. She had returned to her family home on childhood holidays every summer, suffering a hellish voyage on something called "The Derry Boat," but it had been years since her last visit and she was uncertain of what she would find. A gull wading at the water's edge was startled by some imagined enemy and took off in the direction of an island called Tory, as they luxuriated in a silence broken only by the lapping of waves and an occasional screech of a gull. Earlier, at Strabane, they had boarded a coach to take them into Donegal's heartland. The driver speed lurched from maniacally fast to dead stop, thinking nothing of pulling up for five minutes to chat with a passerby on the roadside or a shopowner in a village, cheerfully blocking the road in both directions. Sometimes he gave, or accepted packages. Often, he just passed the time of day. No one in the bus seemed to mind. The roads were terrible and far too narrow to accommodate a coach. Several times they found themselves behind tractors, once behind a farmer driving his flock of sheep. After they had crawled behind the latter for almost ten minutes, Roy thought the driver would be in a hurry to speed past when the farmer turned into a field. Instead, the driver and the farmer discussed the weather for another five minutes! Having crossed a river they entered another world. The "alien territory" to Roy was one of granite outcrops on heather-clad hillsides, a proliferation of purple rhododendrons, boggy water meadows strewn with rushes, and people living in stone houses with tiny windows. Booking into Falcarragh's only hotel, they downed ham, cucumber slices and a mountain of lettuce - nothing hot was being offered that evening. Next morning they visited an uncle of Noreen's who lived in a tiny whitewashed cottage where her mother had been born. As they entered the sparsely furnished room they noticed an enamel basin of warm milk on the dressers, flies buzzy overhead where the skin was starting to form. "Uncle Charlie" misread Roy's interest; waving the flies aside, he scooped up a cupful and offered it to him. (Noreen's eyes told me it would be bad manners to say "no"). Later the uncle took Roy for an uncomfortable tractor ride with only the odd house in the distance. Roy glimpsed the tragedy of a land whose people where born to live elsewhere, as Noreen discussed the wanderings of a string of relatives - this one in Philadelphia, that one in Scotland, those two in America in a city whose name she couldn't remember, another in London. Roy clutched Noreen to his side as they stood with their backs to the Atlantic to watch darkening clouds gather over Errigal. They lingered only a second, bending their heads against the wind. But that was "The Kiss," the moment when Roy gave in to Donegal's embrace and realized that his life had truly changed - that this was the place for him. Back in Britain days later, he haunted bookshops, reading everything he could about Ireland: history, politics, topography, literature, mythology, poetry -- especially everything about Donegal. He loved the slower pace, the friendlessness and even the "nosiness" of everyone they met, the community spirit of Ireland. He and Noreen and the children would return for countless holidays and Christmases. While he vainly searched for any Irish connections to his surname, he discovered in Olde English it was grene slade, which means dweller in the green valley. Well, he thought, in Donegal, there were green valleys galore! Roy has climbed Errigal, sailed to Tory and drank brandy with the island's king, discovered the beautiful beach of Ballymastocker, drank endless pints of Guinness in a variety of pubs, taken one of the first tours of Glenveigh Castle. He and his family gradually got to know scores of people, beginning with Noreen's relatives and friends from her childhood who had taken the dramatic, and then unfashionable, step of leaving Glasgow to return to their roots. After a decade as a resident now, their love for Donegal had only deepened while the people of Donegal are experiencing the chance to discover for themselves the pleasures (and the perils) of progress. Letterkenny has become a boom town. Donegal clings hopefully to the tail of the Celtic Tiger. He says he is relaxed, knowing that Donegal has withstood hurricanes down the centuries, bending to the wind but never breaking. -- Excerpts, "The World of Hibernia" magazine, Spring 2000.