The Rule of the Land Quotes

“Old, is it?" the man asks.
"Yes, very."
"Pre-war, is it?"
"Yes," I say. "If by war you mean the Norman invasion.”
― Garrett Carr, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border

“A lighthouse is the product of optimism, applied with cold rationality. Haulbowline is built on rock and the belief that technology will make our lives fuller and longer. We need not be shoved around by nature; we can build things to help us hold a place in it. I realise that, just like a castle or a fort, a lighthouse is defensive architecture. Haulbowline defends cargo against fog, fishermen from heavy weather and, in some broader way, lighthouses stand against general chaos, the violence tossed up by a world at spin. Haulbowline guards a different border than the one on the map, it holds the line between order and chaos.”
― Garrett Carr, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border

“It was an engineer named Robert Stevenson who began building these curved towers. He was the founder of a lighthouse-building dynasty although one grandson turned away from engineering and became a writer instead.”
― Garrett Carr, The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland's Border