Those holiday cottages: what we remember

Holiday memories from these well-known people range from diving off piers, speaking Irish, eating too many crisps and coke, and buying various sea creatures from fishermen

JAMES HANLEY,
ARTIST
The artist and portrait painter recalls spending the summer of 1979 with his family in a modern house next door to his mother's family home in west Cork.

"WE WENT THERE to be close to my mothers ancestral home, which was and still is a long-standing pub, shop and post office, called O'Mahony's aka The Mountain House. It is located in Ardfield near Clonakilty by the Red Strand in Co Cork.

It was the beginning of renting houses. Those that were rented in Ireland then were fairly basic but the spot is one of the most beautiful places in Ireland and I love it.

There were about nine of us. It was special. We would have had picnics and I remember going in to town to the bakery, and trips down to the beach.

At night, we went down to the pub for a sing song; my party piece was Boolavogue.

It's where Michael Collins had a drink the week before he died. My cousin, Ellen still runs it. I remember it as us just moving out of the city en masse.

I was a big fan of Michael Collins as a kid and we found a cousin of his. I have a photograph of the two of us together. I still have a photograph of myself from 1979 when I was a 14 year old, posing in front of a plaque to Michael Collins at the great man's birthplace in West Cork."

KAVANAGH,
GALLERY OWNER
The owner of the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery,who grew up in Portlaoise, remembers the summer his family went to Ardmore in Co Waterford in the 1970s, when he was about 10, and stayed in the Melrose BB.

"IT WAS A LOVELY place, like a guesthouse. It was set in nice gardens and was very close to the village of Ardmore. There were other guests too.

There were thatched cottages in the village of Ardmore at that time. An ancient round tower stands guard over the village, and the horse-shoe beach curves around a wide, clean area. It was the perfect place to play and run in and out of the sea.

We spent most of our time on the beach looking for crabs and shells, and there was a fisherman, Tony, who used to take us out in his boat.

We played on the little pier not far from the Cliff House Hotel. The village streets were narrow and winding and the cottages were tightly packed.

There was a sense of excitement and happiness at being somewhere different where the sole aim was to play and to have fun.

It was a beautiful old house and I remember having cornflakes at breakfast there. We always had porridge at home. It was just a lovely time. We just went the once. It was fantastic. Coming from Portlaoise, it was great. It was just great to be somewhere else."

RYAN TUBRIDY,
BROADCASTER
Ryan Tubridy still dreams about his holidays in his grandfather's house in Baile na hAbhann, 12 miles beyond Spiddal in Connemara, Co Galway.

"IT WOULD have been the mid-70s when I was a tiny little boy. It was a very ordinary detached house, but it had this bay window which looked out on a small field which was an eternity for a little boy.

And a lake and on the lake was this old aluminium boat about six feet in length with metal oar holders and car tyres on either side.

There was a little jetty. It was a lovely experience, fishing with my dad. At the window at night, we'd just look out and watch the sun go down. It was just magical. I still dream about my holidays there. I have such strong memories.

There was a little pub, Tigh Johnní Sheáin's, nearby with a little pool table. The glasses of coke and the Tayto crisps floating in them would have got you through the wet days.

And Pat behind the bar used to let me in behind to stack the coke bottles up. And I still go back now and I pay my respects as I'm driving out to Clifden.

Because it was holiday time we were allowed food you weren't allowed eat normally. The rules changed completely, it was a lawless society and gastronomic anarchy at that stage reigned. It was a free for all.

My dad used to fish and my mother would have to gut the fish."

CIARA HIGGINS,
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
The artistic director of the IIB Bank Music in Great Irish Houses Festival, recalls the annual drive to a rented cottage in Connemara in July in the 1980s.

"WE DROVE from Abbeyleix in Co Laois. My sister, Aiveen with her 15 teddy bears, and myself, sat in the back of the car while our dog, Trixie, sat up front with my parents, his tongue hanging out from the heat.

The 1950s house was a stone's throw from the sea, only a couple of minutes walk away, and the days seeming endless.

We went on picnics. It was blisteringly hot and I remember my sister got sunburned.

I remember going in to the shops in the Gaeltacht. It was like another world.

I have a clear memory of the coral beach and that colour pink is really vivid and how it felt under your feet.

And we'd go to different places on day trips, we went to Cong and to Kylemore Abbey and Clifden and Leisureland - there was none of that fascinating stuff in Abbeyleix - and we went to Ashford Castle for afternoon tea. I remember being so impressed by the size, going from a cottage to a castle.

They were really long drives, they felt like for-ever. I have a really strong memory of going into the shop near where The Quiet Man was filmed."

DR VERONICA DUNNE,
MUSICIAN
Ireland's leading singing teacher, artistic director of Opera Ireland and of the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition, recalls holidays in Rush, Co Dublin when she was a little girl in the 1930s.

"DADDY USED TO take a house there for the whole summer. It was a bungalow quite near the sea. The golf course was up from us. The sand banks were close. It was lovely. We spent our days getting into devilment. Going swimming, the sea was not cold, and we used to dive off the pier and we'd go looking for crabs and periwinkles, and building castles and playing hide and seek.

I was very wild. I should have been a boy. That's why they called me Ronnie! My sister was very prim and proper.

I loved swimming. I was into sports in a big way. We used to play tennis and we cycled everywhere.

Everything was very basic. I remember the wonderful new potatoes. I can still remember the potatoes in Rush. Life was simple then.

We used to have a derby with the crabs on the floor, and have bets of a halfpenny and a farthing. We used to put names on the crabs and see which one would win.

The lobsters were for nothing then. The fishermen used to throw them up on the pier. It was great living.

There was an old-fashioned oil-fired cooker in the house, which cooked magnificent sponge cakes.

They were great days. We made fun out of nothing."

DIARMAID FERRITER,
HISTORIAN
The broadcaster and author of the award winning Judging Dev: remembers how his parents, both primary school teachers, took them away each summer for a holiday to the Gaeltacht in Co Kerry.

"WE RETURNED year after year to Muiríoch, which is near Ballyferriter. I always remember it as being damp.

There were bungalows, some were quite big. They were not particularly well built.

It was always a bit of a squeeze on the way down with my parents and four screaming kids all squashed into the small Renault 6. It was big thing one year when they got a roof rack.

Once there, we spent a lot of time on the beaches, rain, hail or shine. Because my parents were big into historic sites, we visited ruins, round towers and we went to the Blaskets.

We were in touch with nature. We had picnics every day, with sand sandwiches made of ham, cheese and sand, wrapped in the old Brennan's bread wrapping paper.

Crisps were a big treat. The four of us used to walk about a mile down the lane to the local village shop for ice cream. My parents were young and there was a real sense of craic. They were great swimmers and we have a huge amount of photographs from those holidays.

Unlike today, there were no wet suits to protect us against the cold salt water when swimming.We loved running around. We were bold."

TREVOR BRENNAN,
SPORTSMAN
The former Irish rugby international player and two-time European Cup winner with Toulouse recalls many holidays spent with his maternal grandparents who lived in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

"YOU'D WALK DOWN to the back of the garden and there was the canal. It was a three-bedroom cottage and we did everything from fishing in the canal to swimming and trying to make a barge.

Sometimes we'd be brought on a tour of the pubs with our uncles and given a big bottle of lemonade and crisps.

I was the second oldest of four boys. We'd travel by car from Leixlip in Co Kildare. It was gas, there was no health and safety back then, no baby seats.

My grandfather would take me on the cross bar of a big old bike, like a postman's bike, on a jaunt up the village. That was the main form of transport.

Like all kids, we palled around with the others and played games.

There are a lot of lovely lakes too and my uncle was a great swimmer. That's where we learned to swim. We'd have lovely picnics sitting on shore."

DAVID ANDREWS,
POLITICIAN
The former Fianna Fáil minister for Foreign Affairs and author of Kingstown Republican, has a very clear memory of the cottage his mother used to rent in Carraroe in Connemara when he was small.

"THE COTTAGE WAS opposite the police station in the village. The sea wasn't very far.

It was in the late 1940s and there was huge poverty. All the people had was the deontas or the dole. There was no running water in the house. There was always a row about whose turn it was to go for the water. It was a thatched cottage and there were mice in the thatch.

We'd take a day to get down. My uncle, Dónny Coyle, used to collect us off the train . There were five of us and my mother. My father would have been working in Bord na Móna, what was then the Turf Development Board. My mother was the commander and chief. We even went to the national school to learn Irish. We'd stay in Carraroe for up to three and half months. The weather was always fine but memories can be quirky.

We used to spend all our days down on the Trá Choiréalach and go out in the hooker from Caladh Thadgh over to the islands bringing them turf.

We had our own donkeys. We used to spend all day in the sea and listened to the radio at night.

My mother was very friendly with muintir na háite, always exchanging eggs for this and that.

There was a sort of a loft in the cottage and we put a bed up there but there were dangerous little stairs. The toilet facilities were very basic, and outside.

My mother cooked very well. She used to bake bread on the skillet pot over the fire.

The fishermen would come with lobsters and they ran around on the stone floor, and my mother or father would buy one.

I have very fond memories of that time. My uncle used say to my mother, 'Mary, you're not going to bring those children to that house'. He was afraid for her because the house was so basic, but the people were so good and generous and friendly. We had fluent Irish at that time. It was a totally different world. It brought us down to earth."