HOLYHEAD BREAKWATER COUNTRY PARK

The harbour breakwater built from limestone blocks

was the longest that the Admiralty

had commissioned. How important Ireland seemed!

On the Country Park lake sown with lilies

an old man sails his battleship. The lake

was a man-made pond that served the brickworks,

built to make the harbour buildings that are dressed

in the limestone quarried from the crags

beside which visitors park their cars.

A grass path leads through heather and gorse

down to low cliffs above the pebble shore.

Linnets and stonechats rise from bracken.

A StenaLine car ferry clears the harbour

and steers for the Republic.