"Between the mountains and the shore, from Erris to Malinmore, is the Donegal Gaeltacht, as it would clash with the wildness of the great sea.

There are many faults and wounds on the same shores, many pigeons and gnats, because of that conflict which began before Parthalán came to Inis Samhaoir, yes, and before years or days came to life from the misty weather.

The thin domesticated rubble that is fresh there lies on the oldest rocks in the world; there are a lot of clumps - the base of the big trees in which the elk used to get stuck before Ireland ever heard a human voice.

A worldly person will not tell a thief because the heather seed that is still found, despite tillage, has been planted down to the very mouth of the high tide. There is no legend as to who put the first spade in it. But it is easy to imagine its appearance before it was removed: the long hills and ridges of the hills and a field of red rushes at the bottom, with quiet lakes dotted and flooded rapids with a slope.

Harbors digging between the high, rugged peaks: harbors that were the horrors of the world at nightfall, just as they are now. Beaches that roared when the last third of their sleep was bad; beaches that used to roar like unrelenting anger and fatigue over the crashing of the waves and shores."