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Article: Mother Ireland; Private and Pristine Landscape, Preserved From Childhood
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- July 26, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The landscape of childhood holidays is etched deeply and
ineradicably into an early page of memory. Its features-seashore,
hills, a village street-furnish the landscape of the imagination with
archetypes, originals by whose standard all later seashores and
village streets are judged. For the outlines of a holiday landscape
have sunk into the mind clean, uncluttered by the debris of everyday
life.
Not long ago I found that I had to be in Northern Ireland-where
I had not been for 30 years-and that two spare days would allow me
the chance of visiting the coast of County Antrim, where I had not
been since I stayed there summer after summer for childhood holidays
40 and more years ago. I ...