Our house sits a few miles south-east of the mountain, Keshcorran. Viewed from this direction the mountain is a lopsided mass, like an over-ripe pear or a scoop of ice-cream melting in the sun. The famous caves of Keash run along the western face, and naturally when the local community erected a cross on top of the mountain they positioned it to look over the caves, its arms splayed out to catch the Atlantic winds. The mountain features in many Irish myths. Ceis Corran, “the harp of Corran”, where a she-wolf raised Cormac Mc Airt, who became the greatest High King of Ireland. The King’s mountain. Seen from the Ballymote-to-Boyle road, which runs under the row of caves, the mountain certainly has a regal sweep to it, stern-faced and broad-shouldered. But from our porch, where we sit on summer evenings, the mountain is a berry, a polyp, a mighty blister, and a reassuring presence, like the cratered moon hanging in the night sky, or the sound of winds blowing through the eaves of your home.

Keshcorran was first published on Dividual Notebook : An Exchange July 2016.