Tir Nan Og

Ireland is a leaden grey sky on wind-swept moors. It is a sward of thin blades of grass bending before the roaring sea. Green rocks falling sheer to the waves, where distance-small seagulls chase shadows and tell forgotten stories.

It is a fisherman's rough hand, an ancient language, and thatched cottages, and fishnets to be mended during winter nights by the fire. It is a waiting mother, fires in the streets and inside hearts, change and immutability. It is the red of a lonely poppy lost in the green of the fields—a path leading nowhere, or to the whole world.

It is freedom, choice, the world that revives in the blinding blue of the sky after the rain, dazzling light that bathes everything in a green fire, in her valleys, in her woods, in her meadows that become one with the sea, and you can only guess where the earth ends and the sky begins.

It is a girl with red hair and bright eyes, a skirt turning to the sound of music ancient yet young, bridge that draws her children together through the ages, breath of a generous and hospitable people.

It is the warmth of a friendship, born by chance, never forgotten.

Ireland never leaves you, she gets into your bones like a fever, into your blood, into your dreams, and she calls to you, sweet and continuous like her waves, "e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare... (and it is sweet to drown in this sea...)"