Fighting the fear of living alone in the country

All of the basics people take for granted in an urban area are fraught with problems for those in isolated areas, writes Michael Clifford in the first of a two-part series

THE odd time, in the middle of the night, Mary Bowles thinks she might hear something downstairs. The fear grips her for a moment, but then she settled down, manages to fall back to sleep.

She is 77 and lives alone outside a village in North Cork. The fear of one’s home being violated by intruders hangs like a constant threat for people who are at the same station in life as Mary.