On yesterday`s cycle, I meandered through sixteen miles of glorious Irish countryside. And I didn`t meet a sinner.

Up and down, over hill and dale, past fields of ripening maize, barley and wheat, and pasture with grazing cattle and sheep, on and on I went.

Sure, there were a couple of people taking advantage of the late evening sunshine, as they sat and sipped beer outside a village hostelry. But, beyond that, there was nobody out walking, running or cycling the roads. Nothing unusual about that in modern Ireland.

At one point, I wheeled down a boreen, the sort that has a stripe of grass permanently embedded in the middle. In its entire two miles, it contained one inhabited house. But, scattered behind it`s overgrown hedges, I caught glimpses of tumbledown stone cottages, old sheds and lean-tos. There were maybe six or seven scattered along the lane, all at an angle…