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Three Small(ish) Donegal Paintings

Three Small Donegal Paintings by Emma Cownie

Donegal is a big mountaneous county in a big country. Imagine my shock when I discover that it’s only the 4th largest in Ireland (after Cork,  Galway and Mayo) at 4,860 km2 (1,880 sq miles). It seems even bigger as there is no railway or motorways here, so it takes a long time to travel around all the mountains. One of joys of the county is that it’s relatively empty (the 5th least populated in Ireland) with 32.6 people per km2.

There is also a lot of coastline and the landscape varies from remote mountain bogland, rocky shores to lush rolling farmland in the east. Here are three small paintings I have completed recently that reflect some of this diversity.

https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps
https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps

 

The first painting is the furthest north – Malin on the Inishowen Peninsula. This peninsula is the furthest north in Ireland – Malin Head is represented by the red star nearest the top of the map above. It is further north than any part of Northern Ireland! This causes a lot of confusion for my parents who have never been to Ireland despite the fact that my father’s grandparents were from Cork.

Beach near Wee House of Malin, Inishowen
Beach near Wee House of Malin, Inishowen

 

The wee House at Malin is a cave, where folklore has it that no matter how many people enter it will hold all. It predates a monastic foundation and Holy Well. The cave and holy well were originally associated with the belief in the sanctity of water and local tradition states that the original foundation was built to exorcise evil from the area. The “Saint” venerated was St. Muirdhealach. He supposedly blessed the well (located in a cavern underneath the large rock directly in front of the ruins of the church).

https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps
https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps

 

The second is a view from Arranmore, the largest of the many islands off the coast of Donegal. This is represented by the red star furthest to the left/west on the map above.

Another View From Arranmore, Donegal_Emma Cownie
Another View From Arranmore, Donegal_Emma Cownie

 

And finally Muckish Mountain which lies further inland in West Donegal. I notice Muckish isn’t always included in Tourist maps (like the one bolow which has a red triangle for near by Errigal), yet its distinctive flat backed shape can see seen from Arranmore in the far west and even Carrigans in the far East of Donegal.

https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps
https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps
Towards Muckish, donegal_Emma Cownie
Towards Muckish, Donegal_Emma Cownie

 

Find out more about County Donegal here: https://www.govisitdonegal.com/brochures-and-maps

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Recent work (of Derry and Donegal)

Recent work - Emma Cownie

We are about to decamp to Donegal for the summer/early autumn. I have mixed feeling about returning to oil paints. It’s been a quite a steep learning curve getting comfortable with acrylic paint but I feel like I finally got there. I am not sure what it will be like to paint in oils again; oh the the joy of easy blending! I am looking forward to being able to paint larger canvases. I will continue my practice of laying down an underpainting in grey-scale paint, regardless.

Here are some of my recent acrylic paintings, mostly of Inishowen Penisula (Donegal)

Kinnagoe Beach - Emma Cownie
Kinnagoe Beach – Emma Cownie
Down to the Rusty Nail, Inishowen_Emma Cownie
Down to the Rusty Nail, Inishowen_Emma Cownie
a painting of Fanad Head and lighthouse
Fanad (SOLD)
On the Way to Kinnagoe Bay (Drumaweer, Greencastle)
On the Way to Kinnagoe Bay (Drumaweer, Greencastle) (SOLD)
painting of Doagh Strand, donegal_Emma Cownie
Down to Doagh Strand, Donegal

Painting of Lambing season at Fanad Head (Donegal)

Lambing season at Fanad Head (Donegal)

Carrickabraghy Castle, Inishowen
Carrickabraghy Castle, Inishowen
Acrylic painting of Portmór Beach, Malin Head, Donegal
Portmór Beach, Malin Head, Donegal

 

Also of Derry city – what a great little city.

The Walls of Derry painting by Emma Cownie
The Walls of Derry

 

The Sperrinspainting Upper Dreen_Emma Cownie

Upper Dreen_Emma Cownie

And finally a few also of my favourite, Gola Island.

painting of house On Gola (Donegal)
Still, On Gola (Donegal)
The Turn in the Road, Gola - Emma Cownie
The Turn in the Road, Gola – Emma Cownie
A Sandy Road Through Gola-Emma Cownie
A Sandy Road Through Gola-Emma Cownie

The weather forecast is for cool weather, so I will be packing some light jumpers. I have found, however, that forecasts are pretty unreliable for Donegal so it could be very pleasant. I am looking forward to the sweet breezes!

 

 

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The Stillness of Summer

Paintings of Donegal by Emma Cownie

Before I moved to Donegal, if you had asked me to name a constant feature of Donegal weather, I would have said the wind.  Don’t get me wrong – the air here is refreshing. It’s like drinking water when you are thirsty.  My husband says its the negative ions. There is usually a breeze, sometimes its a gentle one but in autumn and winter it can become a punishing gale that howls around the house, making it hard to sleep at night.

We have a grey breezy day here today, with rain forecast for later. Hopefully the breeze will help blow away the midges that are hanging around our garden.  Midges, if you havent come across them  before, are tiny flying insects that, at best annoy you and at worst bite you. The Irish version may or may not be related to the infamous Highland version, I am not sure. Yesterday afternoon we watched them swarming in a cloud outside our kitchen door! They like grey damp days, not like the days in my three paintings!

These paintings attempt to capture this summer’s stillness when there was very little breeze and it was uncharacteristically hot. Clouds are usually a feature of the skies here but there were several days when there were none.  It’s climate change manifesting itself in these spates of hot summer days and (soon to come) fierce autumn and winter storms.

Painting of houses Meenacladdy Donegal Ireland
Meemacladdy, Donegal, Ireland
Landscape painting of houses at Lines, Marameelan
Electricity Lines, Marameelan (Donegal)
Painting of Irish house in Donegal
Not a Cloud in the Sky (Bloody Foreland)
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100K!

100K views of www.emmafcownie.com

This week I passed an important blogging milestone. On Tuesday moring I was greeted with the message that my wordpress site had passed 100,000 all-times views!

100,000 views - wow!
Wow!

My husband, Séamas, set up this wordpress site for me over seven years ago. When I took it over full-time in 2015, I had 91 followers, now I have just over 800! Views for my site have steadily been growing but 2020-21 was a bumper year. Stats for my wordpress blog

Breaking my leg last year provoked the most comments by far!

Comments
Comments

I would like to say a great big thank you to every one who visited my website, bought my work, read my blogs and left comments!

It seems that I like animals almost as much as I like Art. Turns out that Wayne  (Barnes) of Tofino Photography is my chattiest follower.  He certainly makes me laugh! He takes wonderful photographs of the incredible wildlife of Western Canada – eagles, bears, wolves, orcas and humming birds! Take a look here.

A Candian bear catching his lunch
A Candian bear catching his lunch: Image  by Wayne Barnes

Thank you to everyone who has visited my website and blog. Whether you have just stopped by to look at my paintings, read my blogs but especially those who “like”, comment and buy my work.  Without you I could not continue to make art.

Painting of view Overlooking Magheroarty
Overlooking Magheroarty
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Spring Newsletter 2021

Newsletter Cover

Here’s my spring newsletter which you will see is heavy on the visual and very light on the text!

Spring Newsletter 2021 Page 1
See more Gola paintings 

 

Spring Newsletter 2021 Page 2
See Large paintings 
Spring Newsletter 2021 Page 2
See  All Recently Sold Work 

 

See! That was easy to look at. If you wish to get regular (no more than once a month) updates about my work and news about exhibitions sign up here

 

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Still life paintings

Still Life Painting
Private Conversation

This will be a short post as I am nursing a painful left elbow on an ice pack. I developed bursitis on Friday, I am not sure why as I didn’t hit my elbow on anything but too many sun salutations in yoga is my number one suspect.

We have had a lot of really bad weather lately. We seem to be cantering our way through the alphabet of storms: Atiyah, Brendan, Ciara, Dennis, Ellen, Francis etc. This means I have rarely left the house, except to buy food, walk the dogs in our local park or to go to a yoga class, although yoga will be out of bounds until my elbow recovers now.

So, whilst Storm Ciara was blasting her way overhead, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to set up a number of still life compositions to work from. I had painted a number of largish canvases (80x60cm) and felt in wanted to paint something smaller for variety’s sake, and also something that I could complete in a short (gloomy) day.

My past forays into Still Life painting explored paleness/whiteness, and they were largely inspired by the work of Morandi. These were medium-sized paintings. I liked the calmness of the plain backgrounds.

In this short series of paintings, I was more interested in colour. I was particularly inspired by a patterned cloth that my husband, Seamas, had found in a charity shop many years ago. I liked the warmth of the colours.

This was my first painting. I liked the way the colours of the flowers chimed with the fruit on the plate.

Still life with Patterned Cloth
Still life with Patterned Cloth

I think my second painting was better probably helped by better light on the day that I painted it.

Still life with patterned cloth #2
Still life with patterned cloth #2

Then I decided to focus on the fruit. A tiny slice of it!

#3
A Slice of Lemon (SOLD)

Then finally a more traditional composition with a cup and red cloth. I have noticed before how I am drawn to painting reds in winter.

Blue cup with Lemons
Blue cup with Lemons

The bright colours in these paintings cheered me up. Having completed this short series I felt ready to return to large canvases and more muted tones.

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Painting Tenby Harbour

Painting of Tenby Harbour
You may well have noticed, that I like to explore different subject matters. I find it impossible to paint any one thing, be it landscapes, seascapes, animals or streetscapes all the time. I like to pursue a theme for a while and then switch to a different subject or work on small canvases to a large one. They all present different challenges. I sometimes wonder why I like to make myself slightly uncomfortable but again and again, I do. I was ill over Christmas with the cold from hell which developed into a nasty cough that sprang into action with any drop in temperature. Just before I gave up everything and just sat in front of the fire, I painted a painting of Tenby Harbour. I hadn’t planned to, but I was looking through my photos and I came across a photograph I had taken last spring. I was struck by the light on the lobster pots. So I painted it.
Tenby Painting
Early Morning Tenby (SOLD)
I then gave up painting for a while, as the cold air in my studio set off my cough, and coughing and painting don’t go well together. Sitting in front of the fire, I was aware that I wanted to paint a boat. The small boats in the “Early Morning Tenby” painting hadn’t quite satisfied me. So I decided to paint a boat called “Mistress II” moored up at the quay at Tenby Harbour. I was quite nervous before I started the painting. I was concerned that I would get sucked into painting the detail of the building in the distance so I decided to sketch a tonal painting before I added colour. What I mean by a tonal underpainting – is just using thinned red ochre and raw umber to sketch out the light and shade in a composition. In this way, it would help me simplify the buildings in the distance and so focus the viewers’ eye on the boats in the foreground. They also helped me solve the “problem” of the lobster pots on the “Mistress II” which were in shadow.  I think the tonal under-painting helped the final painting.
Tenby Painting
Hazy Tenby
Unfortunately, I was so nervous about this painting I didn’t think to take a photograph of the tonal sketch so I can’t show it to you! I made a point of taking a series of photos to show the work-in-progress of my next Tenby painting. This composition was interesting to me as a third of the town of Tenby and half of the harbour and was in shadow. The harbour wall and half of Castle Hill, however, were in bright sunshine.  #1 Under-painting of Tenby Harbour This painting took most of the week to complete as the light was so poor. I could only work for a few hours at a time. I resisted the urge to push on once the light went. Sometimes, I like the early stages of a painting the best, as it’s still all potential! 
Painting of Tenby Harbour
Finished – Tenby Panorama
Painting of Tenby Harbour Close Up When I looked at the finished painting, I found pleasure in the curves of the harbour wall on the right side of the painting. As it was in shadow, I had not really paid it much attention before. You may recognise the lobster pots on the quayside to the right of the painting that were such a big feature in the first Tenby painting in this series. On the left, there is the tiny turquoise boat alongside the quay. This is the Mistress II, which was in “Hazy Tenby”.  That makes me smile. In a weird way, it reminds me of the many novels of Anthony Trollope in which he created a world in which a  person may be the central character in one book and a minor figure, who only gets a passing reference, in another. Once I have painted an object or person they become quite fixed in my memory, largely because I had studied them so closely. The lobster pots had their moment in “Early Morning Tenby” and tiny turquoise boat in “Hazy Tenby”, and now are supporting characters in “Tenby Panorama”.  
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A Donegal Year

It was a year ago that I painted my first painting of Donegal. Here it is. It is a small one.
Old School, Owey Island
Old School, Owey Island
It’s quite a modest painting. You could say that I started off tentatively. I was feeling my way. The light in Donegal is very clear and the scenery is beautiful. That’s an overused word in this age of social media, but it is beautiful. My husband, Seamas (he likes counting things) tells me that I have painted over 50 Donegal paintings (including 3 commissions). That pretty much averages out at one a week. I am pleased to say that I have already sold over half of them. I discovered that I had to use a different palette from the one that I use in Wales. The greens and yellows were more yellow ochre than lemon yellow and the sea was more turquoise (but not quite as turquoise as I first painted) thanks to the clear water.  I loved the rocky landscape of the Rosses. It was a landscape like no other I’d seen before. Someone has said to me that it’s quite alien, like a moonscape in places. I love the granite rocks. We have a massive one behind our cottage in Donegal. I feel very affectionate towards it. It’s a protective presence, especially when it’s windy. Of course, when you are in a different country to the one you were brought up in, everything seems fascinating. I have loved painting both the modern Donegal houses as well as the old cottages. I will freely admit I am quite obsessed by landscape spotted with old cottages on the Donegal islands, on Arranmore and Gola in particular.
donegal painting of Gola, West Donegal.
Spring Light on Gola
I haven’t really got to grips with the mountains of Donegal. What I mean is that I need to visit them a lot more, walk up them and get to know them better. So far I have just admired the “Seven Sisters”, including Mount Errigal and Muckish from a distance.
Painting of Irish mountain
Swirling Clouds Round Errigal
Of course, the real joy of Donegal is the clouds. The changes skies. I am used to it raining, (I have lived in Wales for over 25 years) but the light is different by the North Atlantic Ocean. It is often more slivery, and more changeable.   I think about Donegal every day when I am in Wales. My husband will place his current favourite Donegal paintings in the bedroom and in the lounge so he can look at them whilst we still have them. Here’s my most recent painting Donegal painting. I am currently working on a painting of Arranmore Island, unfortunately, it rained so much here yesterday, the light went and I have yet to finish it.
Donegal painting
Back Road to Burtonport
 
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Over to Worms Head

Painting of Worms Head

I managed to make it down to Rhossili Bay this week. It has been raining on and off for weeks. I have been painting in my attic studio listening to the rain thundering down and I have got quite tired of that sound.  So when I was greeted by clear skies I decided, on a whim, to drive down to Rhossili to see the autumn colours.

Rhossili has a wonderful windy wildness to it. It’s unlike the rest of the Gower Peninsula. The trees all lean heavily away from sea and the prevailing westerly wind. As I drove into the village I was caught up in a sheep-jam. A herd of sheep was being moved from one field to another. They were packed into the little road and had stopped the traffic (it was three cars actually). I watched the mob of sheep as they swirled in front of my car and past me. They were Welsh Mountain sheep; only a few had horns. Their creamy fleeces were spotted with brightly coloured red and purple “smit” marks. These are marks painted by their farmers that denote ownership. One moment they were packed around me and the next they had moved on.

There was space in the church car park so I parked and put my donation in a slot in the wall. This car park is closer to Rhossili Beach. If I had wanted to walk to Worms Head itself the National Trust Car park with its facilities (loo block and shop) would have been better. From here I walked down a stepped concreted path down towards the beach. It seems strange but I have never walked on this particular path before. I don’t know why. I have always walked parallel to the beach along the cliffs paths (one on the top of the downs and one in front of the rectory). I wrote about the coastal path in several blog posts and in my book, Footnotes: An Artist’s Journey Around the Gower Coast.

Rhossili Bay
Rhossili Bay (View From the Path)

So I followed the path downhill and got a different view of the Worm. The bracken had died back to a wonderful russet colour (one that I associate with wales) and the sea was a beautiful turquoise blue. The tide was out and the tidal island, the Worm (Wurm) rose up above the waves on the horizon. I looked at how the light caught the back of the Dragon and remembered how arduous walking across it was.

Painting of worms Head Rhossili Bay
Over to Worms Head

The walk down to the sea was quite steep but easy. The final descent was down a ramp of gravel.  The vast beach was surprisingly populated for a term-time day in the week.

IMG_7185
Worms Head Rhossili

Of course, I could not pass up the opportunity to visit the remains of the Helvetia on Rhossili Beach. The Helvetia was a Norwegian ship bound for Canada that was wrecked in south-easterly gale on Rhossili Bay over 130 years ago on 1st November 1887.  In the Instagram age, given its picturesque location, its not surprising that it has been photographed and shared countless times.

Oil painting of The Wreck Of The Helvetia
The Wreck Of The Helvetia, Rhossili, Gower

 

I walk across the beach to bottom of the vast 200-foot cliffs, looking at the colours and light. There are seagulls scattered across the beach and when I turn back I can see the Rhossili Downs and the Od Rectory reflected in the outgoing tide.

Rhossili Reflection
Rhossili Reflection

On the far edge of the beach, I was surprised to discover the remains of another shipwreck in the sand. A bit of online research and I discover that this is Vennerne, apparently, it is known locally as the Vernani, and it was dashed to pieces under the Rhossili cliffs in 1894.

Another Wreck on Rhossili Bay

Another Wreck on Rhossili Bay

There is quite a strong breeze. When the clouds roll in it starts to feel cold. The clouds create a softer light. The grays and purples dominate. I am glad I have my woolly scarf on and start to make my way back to my car. The path hill is pretty steep and the climb warms me up.

Cloudy Worms Head
Cloudy Worms Head

The next day, I am tired from walking across the sand but it doesn’t matter as its raining again.

 

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The Cottages of Donegal

Cottages of Donegal, Ireland
Donegal painting of Owey Island
Owey in Late Spring

I love the Donegal islands for their peace and quiet. Oh, the relative absence of cars, the abundance of nature but I particularly love their houses. You may have noticed that I painted quite a few of them, lately; lovely long strings of houses.

Donegal Painting of Inishbofin
Across to Inishbofin SOLD

I love their simple clean lines. I enjoy the old-style aesthetic. In Donegal, houses were whitewashed and woodwork was painted red. You still see a few houses like this. Sometimes you might see one with a thatched roof. Usually, their thatch has been replaced with tiled roofs.

Traditional Donegal House
Traditional Donegal House (with a thatched roof)

When is a house a cottage? When it’s small and old and hand-built by its inhabitant, I suppose. In England, the term cottage originates from the Anglo-Saxon term for the peasant or “cottar”, in Irish the word for these houses is “teachin” or “teach beag” which means small house. You can watch a short film on how to say “teach” in Irish here, you may think that word looks like an English word, but it’s pronounced very differently in Irish.

Cottages literally grew out of the landscape that surrounded them. It stands to reason that in the past homes were built from local materials. If the stones and wood had to be carried by donkey or man-power it wasn’t likely to come from very far away. Stone would predominantly be used in coastal and rocky areas, muddy clay in the midlands and even turf in boggy areas.

media_200599
Photographs of a Gweedore cottage by James Glass

Cottages came in different sizes; from the tiny laborer’s cottage or Bothán Scóir (a one-roomed house with mud floors and often not even a window); the byre dwelling (a slightly larger cottage that was shared with the animals) to the thatched mansions – two-storey thatched farmhouses that were often extended from single-storey cottages as the occupants become wealthier.

In Donegal  “direct entry” houses were typical, where the front door open directly into the room with the fireplace. The most popular form of cottage is that with the living area at the center with the hearth fireplace and a bedroom on either end.

The fireplace or hearth usually formed of stone and located at the center of the house with a bedroom behind it to further absorb the heat. Most families lived in a single room. 

Traditional large fireplace (Kerrytown< Donegal)
Traditional large fireplace (Kerrytown, Donegal)

 

Interior of cottage with family. Aran Islands, Co. Galway, c. 1900
Interior of cottage with family. Aran Islands, Co. Galway, c. 1900
 
Note the bed by the fire
Note the bed by the fire

 

In rural Ireland, they did not usually own the land it stood on.  This is why landlords could evict tenants for non-payment of rent (usually, if they wanted to replace people with more profitable sheep), even those the occupants had built those houses themselves. In the case of  John George Adair of Gleanveagh, he had the houses pulled down after the tenants were thrown out! This was common eviction practice.  Anyone who has seen the excellent film Black 47 will know that this practice, could and did, lead to the death of old and frail tenants  in winter. 

Painting of Donegal, Arranmore
Over to the Rosses (Donegal, Ireland) SOLD

 

Houses were designed through necessity.  The general rule was that the front door of the cottage faced south, to shelter the house from the prevailing westerly winds. Windows were small in order to retain heat in the winter and to keep cool in the summer. Ground floor windows usually faced to the south, not on the gable ends.

Meadow Cottage
Meadow Cottage – note the first-floor window in the gable end

There were often small windows on the first floor of the gable walls where there were loft accommodations. The walls of a cottage were typically about 600mm thick to support the roof and beams, this led to the attractive deep window reveals found in most cottages.

IMG_2439
Cottage with outhouse (Gweedore)

You may have noticed that many old Irish houses are not one single unified block, but are made up of several extensions, a kitchen at the back, an extra room to the side. Homes were enlarged when money was available. Often this money was earnt far away from home as hardship forced family members to look for seasonal work far away in Derry, Tyrone or even in Scotland.

Donegal painting house Gola
A House on Gola SOLD

Modern houses in Donegal, like modern houses in most places, are comfortable, spacious with plenty of windows. Older people, here as elsewhere, I suspect prefer bungalows for their lack of stairs.

New Houses, Letterkenny, Donegal
New Houses, Letterkenny, Donegal

Yet, there is still a space for the old style.  On Cruit Island there is a holiday village of new-build holiday homes in the “old” style.

 

They are single story with thatched roofs but they are large, comfortable, and furnished with wooden rocking chairs, and folksy bedspreads. They also have a beach a stone’s throw away. Obviously, there are real old houses you can stay in on Cruit Island too.

Donegal painting of thatched cottage, Ireland
Donegal thatched cottage #2 SOLD

I sometimes wonder if I am painting a “fake” version of Ireland. I am giving the impression that all of Donegal is covered in little quaint white houses? It isn’t, but they are there. Especially in the Rosses and on the islands. Not all of the houses are quaint in  North-West Ireland; the “bungalow blight” that affects parts of Donegal has been commented on by others.  I suppose I am drawn to the clean lines of the old houses.

Painting of Irish Cottage in Donegal
On the Way to Arranmore (SOLD)

This is a theme I have explored in a different context, previously. A couple of years ago I explored the “Hollowed Community” of Brynmill and painted the Edwardian terraces that surround my home in Swansea. I was also interested in a lost community. The old way of life (pre-internet) that is fast vanishing, where your neighbors lived next to you for years, not for weeks or just the summer months. 

Donegal painting of Owey Island
Owey Island (SOLD)

 

See available paintings of Donegal 

To find out more about the history of the Irish cottage see the links below

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/folklore-of-ireland/folklore-in-ireland/vernacular-architecture/The%20Irish%20Cottage/

https://www.irishamericanmom.com/the-thatched-cottage-as-a-symbol-of-ireland/

Why do irish cottages have so few windows? 

https://www.nihe.gov.uk/Documents/Community/traditional_buildings

Irish Cottage History

 Places you can visit

http://www.glenfolkvillage.com/

https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Country-Life/Exhibitions/Hearth-and-Home

Doagh Famine Village

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