"All of Dublin was there" said one, referring to Clifden over the holidays. "You couldn't get into King's or the other pubs on New Year's Eve. Well, eventually you did. "And All of Dublin", others claim, was in or about Roundstone at the same time. Snow or heavy frost on the Twelve Bens and other heights. Some went shooting in the Inagh Valley, expecting woodcock. They got two. Others stopped at Goirtin Bay, near Roundstone on their long way home, near Bulmer Hobson's old house and went up the sandy slope of the graveyard to pay their respects at his final resting place. Stop at O'Dowds excellent establishment for lunch on the way home. Mussels, please. Hold on a second. No mussels just now. Five minutes later. Yes, the mussels have arrived. You couldn't get them fresher. All kinds of seafood.
The small lakes around were frozen. The bigger lakes frozen at the edge. Past Recess and its lake, where the sea trout used to come up in squadrons, along the Ballinahinch system. In July you could count on the four pounders, followed by the three and two pounders, and then the little ones tinkling over the shallows after the first floods. No more. And then we get worked up about what the Spaniards will do to the sea fish, when we have wasted a wonderful resource in Connemara.
But on through what is still familiar landscape, and its memories of the Martins and Maria Edgeworth's famous account of her journey in those parts. Mostly bitter, biting wind, but here and there, briefly, shelter and sunshine, and always the sense of being out on the edge, Hy Breasail over there on the horizon. Virgil wrote of Ultima Thule. In the middle of Europe the Germans knew of it. "There once was a King in Thule..." wrote Goethe.
For a few short days, you have been in touch with another world.