A sense of place

Sir, – Further to recent correspondence (Letters, March 4th and 6th), I was born and reared in Kildorrery, Co Cork, where we seldom used north, south, east or west to describe direction. Instead we used the words up, down, in, back and over. We went back to Mallow and to Kerry. We went up to Cork, down to Limerick.We went up to Dublin, and in to Mitchelstown.

And when a need for further travel struck, we went over to England and to the US. And back is the direction of choice when we returned to Ireland. – Yours, etc,

NED MONAGHAN,

New Canaan, Connecticut.