Where is your treasure? I was delighted to have this chance to write about the Sperrins, and meeting Fidelma O’Kane and other members of the Save Our Sperrins campaign was a truly inspirational experience.

It was prompted by an invitation from Cherry Smyth to the poetry-music performance of her poem One Mountain: Sold. The poem is brilliant on the page, but the live performance at An Creagán, on 29th March, was something else. Interwoven and in conversation with the vocal and musical compositions of of Lauren Kinsella and Dan Nicholls, it was an ethereal, resonant and haunting evocation of the voice of the land itself. Through the magic of electronics and instrumentation, Lauren’s voice morphed from the tinkling of birdsong and mountain streams to the disturbing thuds of drilling and the groans of the earth. The voices of local children were braided through the performance, as they chanted the townland names like a song. It was a wonderful evening.

I’d already spent much of the afternoon in the company of Fidelma O’Kane, who took me on a whistle-stop tour of the area. Having myself lived in the north Sperrins for over a decade, I could appreciate in a visceral way the dissonance local people must feel at the thought of a mine so close to their homes. And as commenter Wormwood20 drew prompt attention to in their comment on my piece, this a really current issue, not just in the Sperrins, but all over the world.

However, people like Fidelma, and others in SOS, many of whom I met that evening in An Creagán, are a testament to the human spirit and to its ability to persist against all odds. It was an honour to meet them all, and to have the chance to put that into a very small number of words, which hardly do justice to their commitment and sacrifice.

I spent a little time by myself towards evening at the Owenkillew River and had a few words with some shy sheep.

Speaking of words, every one of those is precious too. I took the notion to buy the hard-copy of The Guardian today, because I wanted to see what lovely wood-cut effect image might accompany the piece, (as often the case in the print version). Well, there wasn’t one – maybe this was to allow for more space for my words. And indeed there is no difference between the print and the on-line version that I have identified (sometimes the latter is a smidgeon longer – the column as a physical thing means there’s more pressure on the word-count). Anyway, here’s the hard copy:

I am grateful to Cherry Smyth for connecting me directly to this issue and to the SOS campaign, as well as for her wonderful poem, One Mountain: Sold. To Fidelma O’Kane for all the time she gave me, all she showed me, and for all the stories of commitment and creativity. To Lauren and Dan, as well as Cherry, for making such a stunning work of art, which completely illustrated, as I think Dan said, how art is political ‘even when it pretends not to be’ – and that it’s vital not to play it down as simply ‘entertainment’. Their collective work was mesmerising in its beauty and its bravery. To everyone I met at An Creagán, especially Mairead, Emmet, Cormac, Fergus and Barney. You are all so inspiring. I’d also like to thank Kerry McCrory and Gordon Dunn for generously providing the gorgeous photos that accompanied the published piece.

And finally, I especially want to thank the editor of the Country Diary, Paul Fleckney, for all his encouragement and guidance.