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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/paralympics-torch-relay-slieve-donard

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In praise of … Slieve Donard In praise of … Slieve Donard
(about 14 hours later)
From Newcastle, an attractive seaside resort in County Down, Slieve Donard looks like a tiddler, somewhere to walk off your lunch and be back in time for the cream tea. It nestles deceptively close to the shoreline and nothing about the benign green bump on the horizon invokes effort. People have jogged up it or taken their toddlers up it. As the ascent steepens, you enter a landscape of granite ridges, boggy paths, and a wind you can lean back into. That's on a good day. Three hours after you started out so jauntily, you reach the highest peak in Northern Ireland, nestled up in the Mourne Mountains. You have actually climbed 850m, most of the way up Scaffell Pike (978m) in England, Snowdon (1,085m) in Wales, and Ben Nevis (1,344m) in Scotland. It was from these four peaks that the flame for the Paralympic torch relay was generated. There could be no more elemental place. From Newcastle, an attractive seaside resort in County Down, Slieve Donard looks like a tiddler, somewhere to walk off your lunch and be back in time for the cream tea. It nestles deceptively close to the shoreline and nothing about the benign green bump on the horizon invokes effort. People have jogged up it or taken their toddlers up it. As the ascent steepens, you enter a landscape of granite ridges, boggy paths, and a wind you can lean back into. That's on a good day. Three hours after you started out so jauntily, you reach the highest peak in Northern Ireland, nestled up in the Mourne Mountains. You have actually climbed 850m, most of the way up Scafell Pike (978m) in England, Snowdon (1,085m) in Wales, and Ben Nevis (1,344m) in Scotland. It was from these four peaks that the flame for the Paralympic torch relay was generated. There could be no more elemental place.
• This article was amended on 24 August 2012. The original misspelled Scafell Pike as Scaffell Pike. This has been corrected.