IN 1816, landscape painter John Knox, travelled the 10 miles or so from Glasgow, to paint the Clyde from Faifley and Duntocher—two small settlements which were part of the parish of Old Kilpatrick. It was an early autumn scene, a rolling wooded hillside with a textile mill in the distance. It was pleasant, green and largely unoccupied. By the mid 1840s it was an entirely different picture.

IT IS perhaps the human condition to take for granted your good fortune. However, I have no excuse for failing to regularly remind myself that for the past 30 years, I’ve been able to call Ireland’s best-kept secret my homeplace.

IRELAND has voted for more of the same. And why wouldn't it?

FULL disclosure, I don’t always pay much attention to the folks at Met Éireann. At this stage, I’m a bit of an expert on what the local...