About a house to weather all storms

There was once, then and now, living on this beautiful island of Ireland, a young man with nothing to his name. The young man worked in the fields, minded sheep, cut turf, whatever was needed to earn a piece of bread.

The man slept wherever he could, and, during those nights, when the cold would crawl into his bones and the rains would seep into his clothes, all he could dream of was a warm, little cottage of his own, where he would be protected from the cold and the beasts of the night.

As the luck of the Irish would have it, the young man, let’s call him Eoin, received as inheritance, from an old, unknown aunt, a small piece of land on the cliffs of Donegal.

Eoin was beside himself with joy. Now he will be able to have his own place in this wide, wild world.

Over the next years Eoin worked hard to build his little cottage, and when he was faced with hardships he would just close his eyes, would think of his house and would push through. He spared no effort and soon he was able to move into the cottage of his dreams.

This cottage, to you and me, would seem like nothing much, but to Eoin it was the be-all and end-all. You have to understand that before his cottage Eoin lived in the fields, or in a hay barn when he found one, or hidden between the animals trying to keep warm.

When you have nothing, the smallest thing becomes a treasure.

Eoin would walk around in his cottage and would not believe it is his, he would not be able to accept that, after all those years, finally, he had come so far as to have a place of his own in the world.

He was finally safe.

Not long after Eoin moved into his cottage, a huge storm came menacingly from the Atlantic. The storm raged on and on and high winds blew so badly that they took off the roof Eoin had so lovingly covered his cottage with.

His house was destroyed and with it, his heart.

But the cottage was all he had, so after drying up his tears and quieting his desperation he set about putting a new roof on. This time though, Eoin went and consulted with the best roofers, he learnt how to correctly pin the thatch, how to make the best use of scollops and to secure the roof in place.

The roof was now indestructible and Eoin was happy again in his little cottage.

Time ticked along nicely until, one night, Eoin got up to find all the objects in his little room were floating. When morning came it became clear that the cottage had been flooded by heavy rains.

Eoin hurt again and disheartened he cleaned up the house. Once his determination came back, he build a nice thick protecting wall all around the cottage.

You see, the cottage was all he had, there was nowhere else for him to go and abandoning his home was out of the question. So, after a lot of work his home was again protected from all the storms and winds.

As time went by, Eoin forgot the storms and started to enjoy his routine in the safety of his own home. Life can indeed, sometimes, be very pleasant to live. But it still holds surprises, and not necessarily good ones.

One day, when Eoin was coming back from the market, he was shocked to find that all the windows of his little cottage had been smashed and the place had been ransacked.

With tears in his eyes he unlocked the sturdy oak door and faced the destruction inside. Having your own house can be really heartbreaking sometimes.

But it was the most precious thing Eoin had, so there was no other option than to work at it.

Eoin replaced the windows and when he was done, his oak door gave him the idea to put really strong shutters to protect them. Now, the little cottage felt like a sturdy fortress on the high cliffs of Donegal.

Eoin though, found out that, his inner peace did not come from the safety of his house, but from the knowledge that he has the ability to weather every and any storm.

Finally, Eoin had become his own home, his own place of safety, that which he had been searching for all along.

For all I know, Eoin still lives in his weather proof cottage, weathering all the storms that cross his path on the wild Atlantic way.