Dream Ireland'Dream Ireland', for many emigrants, signifies memories of the road home. The road in this photograph leads to legendary Slieve Gullion in County Armagh, but it could just as well be the road to anyone's home in any part of the island of Ireland.
This road has witnessed love and romance, poverty and pain, sorrow and laughter. It has borne the hoof prints of pigs and sheep, cattle and horses; and the tracks of cartwheels, bicycles, tractors and cars. It has enchanted in daylight and haunted in the hours of darkness. It has shivered in winter and basked in the summer sun. It has featured in the dreams and inhabited the memories of generations. It is the road to the wide world and, in the fullness of time, it is the road home.
An old picture that was displayed on the walls of many homes in Ireland in the 1950s bore the following lines that took seconds to say but a lifetime to learn:
"Many strange roads we love to roam,
But the best is the road that takes us home."
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