It’s Monday morning and after a very exhilarating week with a thread exploring the music of Northern Ireland, I’m standing here at the site of the Maritime Hotel in College Square North in Belfast: the venue where Van Morrison and Them kicked off the blues boom in Belfast.

It’s time to move on. I’ve Googled. There are ferries from Belfast to Liverpool, Douglas and Cairnryan. Or I could sail from Rosslare to Fishguard and revisit the sites of many childhood holidays in Dyfed (Pembrokeshire).

But even after a Kneecap Corsair Chicken Banquet, I’m still hungry. I don’t want to take a Ryan Air flight to Stockholm or sail to Fishguard (or follow Yeats to Byzantium). The beauty of the autumn trees here in Belfast inspires me to travel south into the Republic and make a pilgrimage to Coole Park in Couty Galway where in 1917, Yeats wrote his poem about the wild swans.

That’s just for starters. This summer our book circle read Paul Murray’s epic family drama, The Bee Sting. Again and again we choose to read Irish writers. Colm Toibin, Michelle Gallen, Anna Burns, Roddy Doyle, Edna O’Brian, Patric Kavangah etc In the Guardian recently Kate McCusker pondered » Continue Reading.