
Winter, 1907. You live in Clifden in western Ireland, and your favorite way to spend the rare clear-skied evening (after a hard day of farming or herding or shopkeeping) is to walk up the hill to the monument.
The sunsets are gorgeous over the Atlantic ocean, and as dusk falls you can look south to see a man-made lightning show. Sparks dance over eight huge wooden masts marking a rectangle 1,000 feet long by 200 wide. The masts support 52 wires running lengthwise across the top, which fan down at one end into a single wire connected to a mysterious building. The entire apparatus is over 200 feet tall, and when the wind is right you might hear the electricity crackling.
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