On Wednesday, June 6, I watched the arrival in Scotland of the Olympic torch and its accompanying party.
The weather in Cairnryan, to which the party had travelled from the torch's Irish tour, was wet, miserable and blustery. I was absolutely riveted to my seat; but not for obvious reasons. The arrival of the torch sparked an enormous resonance in my mind: I was thrown back 171 years to the arrival in Scotland of another Olympian party which had sailed, not quite to Cairnryan, but to Portpatrick, on a packet boat from Donaghadee.
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