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ONE

IRELAND IS A land of poets and legends, of dreah and around the, for battle or for love In ancient ti their tunes for a ht come with them The harpists and the seanachais —the storytellers—elcoe or inn or caift was carried inside thereen hills

And so it is still

Once, not so long ago, a storyteller cae by the sea and was made welcome There, she found her heart and her home

A harpist lived a them, and had his home where he was content But he had yet to find his heart

There wasin his head Sometimes it came to him soft and dreamy, like a lover’s whisper Other ti you into the pub to stand you for a pint It could be sweet or fierce or full of desperate tears But it was h his mind And it was his pleasure to hear it

Shawn Gallagher was a man comfortable with his life Now there were some ould say he was co to see as happening in the world He didn’twith them

His world was his music and his family, his home and the friends who counted Why should he be bothered overmuch beyond that?

His fae of Ardmore in the county of Waterford, in the country of Ireland for generations And there the Gallaghers had run their pub, offering pints and glasses, a decentas most cared to remember

Since his parents had settled in Boston some time before, it was up to Shawn’s older brother, Aidan, to head the business That was her, as he didn’t quibble to adet one He was happy enough torelaxed him

The music would play for him, out in the pub or inside his head, as he filled orders or tweaked the menu of the day

Of course, there were times when his sister, Darcy— who had y and a up a stew or building some sandwiches and start a row

But that only livened things up

He had no proble,especially if there was a bit ofon And he cleaned up without cohers ran a tidy place

Life in Ardmore suited him—the slow pace of it, the sweep of sea and cliff, the roll of green hills that went shi toward shadowed hers were famed for had skipped over him, and Shaell rooted in Ardmore’s sandy soil

He had no desire to travel as his brother, Aidan, had done, or as Darcy spoke of doing All that he needed was right at his fingertips He saw no point in changing his view

Though he supposed he had, in a way

All of his life he’d looked out his bedroom ard the sea It had been there, just there, foah or calm and everyhe’d breathe in as he leaned out hisin the

But when his brother had married the pretty Yank Jude Frances Murray the previous fall, it seeht to make a few adjustments