Some days I sit still and think about how my life became a dream full-circle. There’s William Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Brendan Behan. Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Land of Heart’s Desire and Yeats’s grave. Dubliners, Ulysses and Bloomsday. The mountains, lakes, Dublin, Sligo and the Shannon. Brú na Boinne, Corcaigh, Beara, Daingean Uí Chúis, Zú Bhaile Átha Cliath, craic agus ceol. Brian Ború, Michael Collins, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Daniel O’Connell. Seven hundred years of cruelty, yet still able to endure hard times. Writers, dancers, taps, tin whistles and uilleann pipes. Books, almighty libraries and small bookshops selling secrets. Friendships gained, lost and renewed. New alliances forged in foothills and strengthened on mountain tops. “You, the Irish” becoming “Us…