The countryside rolled past us and I read the signs saying how close we were to Lough Neagh and every mile nearer to it was a mile further away from The Hill. I let my shoulders drop and smiled at myself in the glass of the bus windows. In Cookstown, we got stopped at a checkpoint; the army walked down the aisle of the bus with their guns on their hips. The Six Counties had been bombed from Armagh to Ballymena, Derry to Magherafelt and back, and everyone was twitchy. One of them had a tattoo of a flag on his forearm; it was blue and faded but must have meant something to him at some stage.

Around mid-morning the bus turned right for the signs pointing to the monastery and we all pushed our faces to the glass to get a look. The driveway was tarmac and flanked on both sides with cypress trees which framed the main entrance, up a set of stairs. A priest waited to welcome us, his arms spread wide. We piled out and stood about waiting for instructions. He got as far as introducing himself as Father Kevin before Lizzie Magee took off with me in tow.

–  Come on! This way, Mary!

We pelted for the stairs to cries of ‘no running’ with thirty-three other girls hot on our heels. We got a great room, at the front of the block and just a few feet away from the double doors. There was a single room between us and the stairs; Sister Pious would probably sleep in there or maybe one of the two Holy Joe local women who had been rustled up to help corral us.

We’d a sheet of paper with the retreat’s events listed. Most of Sunday afternoon was eaten up with a lecture called The Contemporaneity of the Bible. It could be interesting as not a one of us had ever even opened the Bible. We only ever read what was in the Common Missal and that was only during Mass. Monday was a Mass with loads of readings and bidding prayers. Tuesday was the sponsored walk before a nice big dinner and then more late-night-vigil stuff in the chapel.

Wednesday was going to be set aside for the counsellors from Belfast who would want to know how we felt about Northern Ireland and all its woes while we listened to how they had been made homeless, intimidated and firebombed and then we were to write up what we thought of the show so far.