From West Cork to Wandesford Quay

I spent some time in Boston in my late twenties. America prides itself on its multiculturalism, but I would hardly be the first to remark that the country has a habit of reducing everything to a certain sameness.

After a while, it began to seem like everyone wore the same clothes, ate the same foods, spoke in the same accent and expressed much the same opinions.

It was a relief to return to Beara in West Cork, where my friends and neighbours included many who were born and bred on the peninsula, along with a scattering of Buddhists, a Cockney agnostic, a Connecticut Jew, and the Kingerlees, an English couple who had recently converted to Islam.