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Close brother-sister relationships have a unique quality which can be a model for our dealings with the world, says psychologist Lara Newton. A sibling relationship is also likely to be the longest we will know, she tells PETER CUNNINGHAM.

IN 1977, WHEN she was 27 years old and a graduate student of English literature, Lara Newton flew from Colorado to Ireland and enrolled in the Yeats Summer School in Sligo. “I had already been in love with the literature of Ireland,” she says. “I then fell in love with the country.”