Every day after school I would loiter there with friends, at the chip shop or in and out of Sportsgirl – with no money to spend but lots of time to look.

Our home towns are the first time we get a sense of place, and of spirit of place – where we discover the world, the shops and clifftops, the changing mood of a town, the way weather shifts – or the economy, the way it can be both the most boring place and the most exciting place ever, often in the space of a day. They’re our first country.

Prodigal sons and daughters don’t want tapas

Just don’t call it nostalgia. It’s something else. I feel different there. It feels rightful. In some places there is a feeling of deep ease. You sink into it, and every molecule of you says, “We have come home.”

The lead singer with the Irish band The Cranberries, was in London for a short recording session.

It is with great sadness that I have learned of

I recall with fondness the late Limerick TD Jim Kemmy's introduction of her and The Cranberries to me, and the pride he and so many others took in their successes

with the band citing O'Riordan's ongoing back problems as the cause.

The late singer rose to fame as the lead singer of The Cranberries in the '90s, providing distinctive vocal work to the band’s greatest hits, including

Victor Hugo once said, "There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul." Indeed, we need a mind that is broader than the sky as we approach different civilizations. Civilizations are like water, moistening everything silently.

Bones settled down in that volcanic soil or ashes scattered in the sea mist won’t feel like death, but will be like coming home.

We are often less attuned to how place interacts with how we feel.