16-Sep-2001 -- A number of weeks ago, I was invited by my good friend, Douglas, to go to his house in the rural Leitrim countryside with some other friends for a weekend away. Of course, as it turned out, the timing was great - it was great to get into the countryside to recover from the shock of Tuesday's events in NY, DC and PA.

When I got there, I discovered that I was only 8km from a secondary confluence. So, on Sunday morning, I excused myself from the gathered company and set off to photograph the confluence.

Studying Ordnance Survey Explorer map number 33, I found that the confluence was beside a cross-roads in the townland of Drumbranned, near the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell canal. While reading the map, I was struck by the huge number of megalithic tombs, ringforts, crannogs and standing stones that were plotted in the area.

I arrived at the confluence around noon. It was in a rather wet and muddy field, with an abandoned old house in one corner of it. I stopped when the GPS showed me to be within about 25 metres of the confluence, as the field was very wet, and I only had a pair of trainers on my feet. I did not want to troop around the field trying to get more zeros on my GPS display.

On my way back to Doug's house, I got caught in a cycle race. It was good to get caught up in something that represented life carrying on as normal.