Children’s fairytales are mixed abundantly with my images of weather. Wagon wheels, turrets and the stroking healing rays of the sun...it all goes together...like chocolate, fruit and nuts really.

I have over-fairied myself by the time I became Catherine Kelly, aged nine. I had read through a lot of stories. Magic was all very well but it didn’t happen, did it? I’d already outed Santy last Christmas due to mother’s excessive breathing as she squeaked her way on rubber soles to the foot of my bed. That had been a bitter enough pill to swallow and I was therefore not in the market for being impressed easily with anything anymore.

Magic belonged between the covers of a dusty hardback, or in the Guinness-riddled céiles where old men puffed their pipes and talked pisreogs into the wee hours.

But this story begins early, early one morning.

It was Easter Sunday.

I was ten. I heard him come to the door of my room. Like my mother, my father’s footsteps were not in league with silence. Neither of them would have got a job in the Fianna, that’s for damn sure -- Fionn Mac Cumhaill would have blown them both out of the water.

“Get up and come to the front window. Now, quick” he said “There’s something happening I want to show you, come on, up!”

On sleep-wobbling legs I did as he said. I padded after him down the landing, scrubbing at my eyes with my fists, sleep heat evaporating through the soles of my sulky bare feet.

“What, daddy, what?” I whined.

The front window overlooked Mickey Brady’s potato field and the hills behind Kells.

“Can you see it?” he said, pointing to the sky.

See what?

Sullen but curious I moved my face closer to the glass, pressing the smelly shedding geranium to one side. I couldn’t believe what he was showing me.

In the sky was the most glorious magical sun ever. It swung in a big half circle like a pendulum, like God’s bell. It seem to go ding-dong, ding-dong to the whole world. It was beautiful and bright and unbelievable. But the more I looked, the more I had to believe. Because, as a child, even if you ARE old enough and wise enough to read the Secret Seven, you’re not inclined to doubt what you see with your own two eyes, the way grown-ups constantly do. Besides, my father hadn’t told me a bit about what I was going to see, I was seeing this all by myself.

Magic, yes magic. My magic.

The sun shimmered with the colours of saints’ cloaks -- magenta, pink, orange OOOh!, deep BLUE.....!

It grew big in the sky, then very small, it bounced itself playfully around in little circles, then sloppy bigger ones, grew calm and pale again and projected itself out of the sky with a dark rim of shadow falling behind it. I gasped, laughed, and caught my hands together in glee. My mouth hung slack jawed open, like a great big O. There was no way things could go back to normal after the likes of this. No way. I could even hear the early thrill of the dawn chorus, the burble and wittering of many feathered companions. Never had I really heard birds sing before. Cripes! This was a perfect morning, jut like a real fairy tale.

Who could I tell? Would any of my friends be up yet? It was just gone six... "Don’t let anyone ever tell you,” said my father “that the sun doesn’t dance on Easter Sunday morning.”

For several years I kept it in my heart, somewhere under all the other books I had read. For surely it was the biggest magic, the best story of them all?

It’s not that I forgot it happened, but you know the way life takes over. Things happen. Other things, that seem more important. Adolescence changes everything. Love, pimples and the Leaving Cert are of paramount concern. Nobody really believes in God anymore. Certainly no one talks about him like they’re excited about his being around. So I let it become submerged by puberty.

It was fifteen years later when I said to Maeve; “We’ll get up for five and climb Knocknarea tomorrow. I want to be on the summit for the sun dance.”

It was the night before Easter Sunday 1998.

“The sun doesn’t really dance,” said Niamh, “that’s just a load of old trot. But I’ll come with you if you’ll carry up a flask of hot chocolate. Deal?”

It was a deal.

Next morning.

It was ever so cold. Five a.m., my eyes were fizzy with sleep as I clapped the alarm into silence.

Five o’clock on Sunday morning in April, I said to myself, I’m not right in the head.

It had snowed, really WAS desperately cold. The darkness tickled my face with its fingers. I turned on the light in the kitchen and jumped to the task of milk-boiling. In jig time I had made up a flask of hot chocolate and had coaxed it into a red nylon rucksack with a routine bar of Crunchie and a Cadbury’s Easter egg that Maeve had got from her mother.

We drove to the foot of Knocknarea. There was no sign of the summit, it was still pitch dark. I let Scooby, my hyperactive black and whit Springer spaniel, out of the boot. I could hear him scattering stones with his feet and spasmodically jetting urine on canine signposts. But I couldn’t see a bit of him, not even his white spots.

I was beginning to have serious doubts. It seemed I wasn’t the only one. “Are you sure about the time?” Maeve said.

“Could we not have slept in for another hour?”

“Watch out for the stones,” I said, not knowing.

Why do things look so very easy when parents do them with you?

“Stones! Now she tells me.” said Maeve as she grunted, slid and sloshed on the gurgling squelchy path in her designer runners.

We abandoned conversation, entered into the adventure of the ascent. Forty-five minutes is what the guidebook tells you. For us there was no beginning, no end to our pilgrimage.

The trudge and sludge and slipping of us as we bent our back into the climb.

The chiffle of our anoraks, the gratitude for gloves.

The interminable blackness.

The silent resentment of each other. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have goaded myself into doing this, it was madness. If it hadn’t been for me, she would’ve been deep in R.E.M. sleep, head burrowed into an unresisting pillow, body buried in a cosy coil under a duvet. Madness, madness.

Then the hands and knees part as we slipped on the white chin of the mountain. No path to follow any more, just upwards, keep going. Hauling on heather with our hands to gain another inch... Hating Scooby now, as he panted down repeatedly, effortlessly, from higher altitudes, excited to know what was keeping us. Wasn’t this great? Such spaniel fun, come on, come on, come on...

The higher we went the colder, the slippier, now more snow under our feet, melting cartridges of it packed itself vengefully into our boots, creating an irreversible wet chill. Chiff, chiff, chiff as we moved agonizingly higher. Our bodies were as stiff as clothes hangers, our eyes squeezed aggressively shut against the spears of fresh driving snow.

The unforgiving shale as we finally ascended the very pinnacle.

Bending ourselves foetally from the piercing wind. My ears burned, nose ran. Maeve hadn’t spoken to me since the outset of the climb. I didn’t know if this was because she had absolutely nothing to say to me or else, worse, too much.

My head cried mad, mad, mad.

My breath rasped, bladefuls of air scarred my windpipe.

Scooby still bouncing around on the heartless shale, I could half-make him out now, a grey irritating bag of energy on four legs. With a furiously waving tail. Every now and again, he’d nearly sunder himself on the stones, fetching a slobbery stick so that I could throw it for him, if I would be so kind.

Wurff! He’d bark exultantly into my crawling, low slung face, pawing the stick so that it made salivated contact with my hand.

Wuurff! Again, as if impressing upon me the importance of enjoying this super little adventure.

“eff off you hairy git.” I breathed resentfully at him, unwilling to afford him one more tiny shard of happiness when it should be quite clear to him that I was in the throes of deep suffering, had reached the nadir of tolerance for doggy games and was probably drawing on my dying breath to communicate with him at all.

The charcoal dawn stretched fingers sleepily over its sky high eyes. Lights still winded in far below Sligo town. I could even make out the amber arm of light that was the glow of the streetlights on the new bridge; the Rosses point route sparkled like a necklace.

Sligo bay glittered with the suggestion of unbearably cold salt water.

This Easter morning was grey, wet and  sludgy. Even the freshly falling snow was grey. One thing there was certainly no sign of was sun. I wasn’t willing to be the one to first make this observation to the contrary young woman who was grunting and wriggling herself to the summit beside me as she spat out mouthfuls of her own wind-teased black hair.

Where was my magic? I pulled myself upright on the top of the comfortless cairn, then quickly ducked down again because of the biting nature of the north wind that whpped around me like ghost breath.

Where the hell WAS my magic?

Was this, as an adult, all I could expect?

Forlornly I opened the flask. It unleashed the heavenly aroma of soothing hot chocolate onto the swirling snow-beaded air. I gave Maeve the good cup, the yellow plastic one with the handle, the one that kept things hot. I even let her sit on the red nylon rucksack; she deserved first class all the way for what she’d just been through. I drizzled my portion into a styrofoam effort, capped the flask. We sat there in silence, sipping; cups cradled by hot gloves, breaking brittle bits off the egg at intervals. The river of sweat inside our anoraks was like liquid central heating, cosseting our bodies like spa water. This Scott of the Antarctic thing was turning itself around a bit now. Things weren’t so bad when you got sitting down, tightly curled up within yourself and didn’t anticipate ever having to move again. Never had Cadbury’s chocolate tasted quite so good. I made a mental resolve to write to the company and tell them so.

The two of us mutually watched the snow showering down like a heavy invasion of white killer bees, first driving forcefully one way, and then whipping around with maelstrom viciousness to attack another target on the mountain face.

We sat for I don’t know how long. Forgotten entirely was our purpose in coming to this place. Time meant nothing. The place we were, the struggle it had been to get there, the magnificent weather we were witnessing from the highest vantage point for miles...somehow these factors overcame the human need for answers to questions beginning with why, what, when.

This was no sun dance. But God, it was performance of another calibre. It was certainly reason enough to be.

Around this time it occurred to me that I could now see Scooby perfectly well, in black and white, with pink tongue glistening. It had not only stopped snowing, but it seemed as if dawn had also happened on us without letting us know. Though unspoken, we both felt that the moment was right for us to now begin our journey downwards. It was as if each of us had received what we needed from our brief stay on this bizarre plateau. Nothing further would be gained by lingering.

We stuffed our humble tableware into the faithful red rucksack and made our way gently down the belly of slippery stones; then wound our way round clumps of mountain heather that twigged eagerly at our clothes like groupies beseeching two jaded rock stars for the autograph. Scooby still zipped with insolent fitness up and down the mountain. But this time I didn’t care. Because now I could see everything, the individual copses of conifers, the sheet of silver water on Lough Gill, the plume of thoughtful smoke climbing the sky from the Korean factory, the glorious whiteness of the rolling landscape. On Easter Sunday! Imagine! Snow!

Our feet made chompy creaking noises in the snow as we found our way downwards with better humour and speed. Somewhere lambs were bleating, ewes responding. There was a sense of connection with the outside world now. We were not so intent on where we were going; it was the journey, this time, not the destination, that mattered.

A break with the panoramic perfection, the, to see a dead hare, lying long-legged and limb-stretched on the white quilt of the mountainside. A thin trickle of pure crimson blood had oozed just an inch or two from his nose, then stopped, as if it had said enough to get its point across. Scooby stood over it, puzzled, looking at me, looking back again at the lovely hare.

Did he expect me to throw it for him? Did the fool really want me to throw the corpse of a hare for him to fetch?

Had he killed it? Was he proud of himself? Was that it?

My mind was jerked a little bit out of its snowscape stupor as I tried not to picture my raggle taggle dog killing anything this perfect.

I hoped not. I hunkered down and touched the gorgeous dun and white coat of my snow sacrifice.

The stark beauty of it. Still warm, Paws like long tapers, delicately curved in long-nailed endings, eyes open, shinning still with life luster in amber depths; teeth filed together in military perfection, gleaming white. Ears long, slightly chilled, pink-frosted flesh on the inside. I rubbed my had in a slow caress along the body and took my silent leave. Not knowing why this was making my heart ache so much. Surely this was an essential part of nature?

Somehow this experience was meant to be part of the day too.

Was not so sure that I liked it.

Maeve was now throwing sticks for Scooby, who had quickly forgotten the hare.

Was not sure if I liked my pet either.

In front of us the bobbing and weaving stone walls twisted downwards like thick cord. They would soon embrace us when we found our way onto the flooded slushy path again. The fingers of spring trees reached up towards the streaky pink and blue sky begging for new mantles of snow. Large crows drew crazy flight lines across the white horizon. There was still magic, an almost tangible presence in the delicious chilled air.

We strode the last - the easiest - part of the walk. Finally on the decent part of the path, fully tarmaced under our feet. No pitfalls to fall into now that we could see everything. Isn’t life much easier when you can see everything? Yes, easier perhaps but not so exciting.

The day was waking up properly. Lick a cliché, I heard a rooster in a nearby outhouse crow. Was it coincidence that he crowed three times? I smiled, regarded the rooster as another pleasant sound effect. Hadn’t heard one years. My mind was on more important things, we would stick on the kettle when we got home, hot toast for everyone in the audience. Maeve reminded me that we also had a packet of Denny’s rashers and sausages in our well-stocked fridge. “On with the lot of them so.” I agreed lightheartedly “And damn the begrudgers.”

Life was beginning to take on a nice Waltonesque glow to it.

There was something about the last hundred yards that reminded me of the story of the apostles on the road to Emmaus. I don’t know why, I can’t really imagine that the apostles were heavy in discussion on the topic of grilled rasher and sausages. Maybe the comparison is in the concentration with which we were engaged on our theme, we just about did not see the obvious either.

The obvious in our case was the sun rising.

We both seemed to raise our heads at the same time. I lifted mine because I had a sudden realisation of a different brightness, a warmth.

My God.

It was a fantastic orange ball rising with purpose in a curved arc above the small hill where it had hidden from us. Over and back in the sky it swung, like a brilliant pendulum, getting higher and higher with each exaggerated movement. It rose until it was directly in front of our eyes and then it expanded in circumference. From orange, it went to pink.

“M...Maeve” I said “Are you seeing anything?”

“It’s going from orange to pink” she said, “It’s getting bigger.”

Then it began to spin, so hard to describe, so impossible.

We satisfied ourselves with very basic description.

“It’s spinning now” Maeve said, “Isn’t it?”

“It is” I confirmed, I could feel my mouth shaping into a stilled rictus, the gaping O of my ten year old self. Could almost hear my father beside me again: can you see it?

“OHHH!” We both went together.

Blades of wild colour were randomly coursing through the pulsating ball, like fantastical lightning. There was a power, and awesomeness to this. Our communication was minimalised.

“Like lightning, different colours” Maeve said, to check up on my mystical experience.

“Yes” I corroborated in soft breath.

Suddenly, the sun lost all colour, turned to a perfect disc, it resembled the host of my mass-going experience. There was a dark silhouette around one side of it as it continually advanced toward us, then retreated. I had a sense of sadness and happiness all in one. Damned if I was ever going to be able to sit down and describe THAT to anyone. Meanwhile Maeve was still doing her best to be our on the spot celestial reporter,

“It’s gone all white.” she said “like communion. And it looks like it’s coming out of the sky then going back in.”

“Yes.” from me.

I don’t know how long this lasted. It was possibly five minutes. All I know is that we both seemed to acknowledge at the same time that nothing further was happening.

“We did see all that, didn’t we?” Maeve asked tentatively. I didn’t need to think about it.

“Maeve, I know we did!”

“God” she said then “that was magic, pure magic.”

I nodded my head at her, I felt as if my eyes were going to pop out of my head with sheer happiness. How like us humans to stubbornly insist on climbing the highest of hills looking for God; when really, he was behind the smallest of hill all the time and could not be any closer to us. A bit of a divine joke really, that one.

I rattled my car keys at Scooby, he had found himself another slobbery stick and was overcome with happiness in his own way.

Magic?

Secretly I felt it was much more than pure magic. Much more. And so was every little element of life itself.