landegwhite.com

It was felt by Bridget O’Toole, with a little burst of girlish optimism. For the first time in seventeen years, after bearing him nine children, she felt the earth move as her husband climbed on board her ample body. Then the rattling of the crockery on the dresser brought her to her senses. It was just another bomb. ‘God bless the Provos’, she sighed, forgetting about the Peace Process, and went back to sleep while he finished.

But the earth had moved. Eighteen months later, the west coast of Ireland was nestling against the Normandy coast of France, and each of the countries making up the British Isles had achieved its national dream