This story was published in the Times Union on Jan. 17, 1999. Geordie Pierce died in Troy on July 6, 2023.
The Pierce brothers, built powerful and low like linebackers, lumbered over hexagonal columns of ancient lava at land’s end. This stretch of Northern Ireland’s northeastern coast is known as the Giant’s Causeway — as if a giant could step across all the way to Scotland, a dark and lumpy outline visible 11 miles across the ocean, where the volcanic rocks form a mirror image.
“Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600-1998: The Mote and the Beam,” by John D. Brewer (St Martins Press, 1998). “Belfast Diary: War As a Way of Life,” by John Conroy (Beacon Press, 1995). “Atlas of Irish History,” by Sean Duffy (Macmillan, 1997). “The Book of Irish Verse: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from the Sixth Century to the Present,” by John Montague (Bristol Books, 1998).
For more information, see the Department of Education for Northern Ireland or visit the City of Belfast’s website.
The brothers moved beyond warning signs with lifelines and floats attached and negotiated the dark, seaweed-slickened ring of rock where the great Atlantic waves came crashing.
Notable Capital Region deaths in 2023
From a distance, the two brothers appeared, like the buff-colored rocks they stood upon, as mirror images. Both wore jeans, tennis shoes and parkas zipped up tight around thick necks. Baseball caps — one for the Chicago Bulls, the other NASA — barely fit atop their heads.
The brothers looked down and scuffed the rock with their feet as they talked. Their words came haltingly and there was an awkwardness to this meeting, because the only common ground they had known for so long was the inside of a prison during fleeting visits.
For all their physical likeness, the two were strangers in a way, separated by an ocean of experience. They had…
Read the full article here
