Slea Head in West Kerry is austere in January. But there are magnificent clear days as well as low, slow mists that shroud everything. Walkers on coastal paths on these cold days exchange short, warm greetings, recovering the intimacy of strangers passing in lonely places from the polite, jostling indifference of the tourist season. We are like birds blown off course, few enough to notice each other with human interest.The man in an orange work-jacket repairing the dry stone walls of the rounded beehive huts was using his gloved hands, and no tools I could see except a chisel. The huts were the dwellings of families as well as of the Celtic monks who began to live the spirituality of the Egyptian desert on and off this coast from the fifth century. He was one of a few who still have the s