Your weekly note from Willson Center Director Nicholas Allen
A note our director Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in Humanities
Dear friends,
I had occasion this week to write an obituary for my friend, the writer, map-maker and artist Tim Robinson. He lived as long and full a life as anyone could wish for, and had a constant companion to the end in his wife Máiréad. In writing his memorial I learned more than I ever knew about his early life in Yorkshire, Malaysia, Istanbul, Vienna and London before he settled in the west of Ireland in 1972. If you are thinking of a book that takes you outside, the first volume of Stones of Aran, in which he walks the coastline of an island off Galway bay, is the place to start. I have been to Aran with some of you and remember it warmly thanks to your good company, on bicycles and foot. We were lucky that day with the weather as we sped out on the ferry, the Connemara mountains retreating from the spray, us shivering in the sea wind as we waited on the pier for the return. Those days will come again, and soon enough.
I hope this finds you in good form. I think of you all and send every best wish,
Nicholas