This week My Holidaystalks to Des Kenny, Chief Executive of NCBI
Your earliest holiday memory?
We didn't really go on family holidays when I was a kid. From the age of nine I attended a boarding school for blind children in Dublin, so returning home in the summer months to my hometown of Newbridge, in Co Kildare, was very much a holiday. My first exposure to foreign travel was at the age of 12, when I visited Lourdes. The atmosphere of the place, the ritual around the cure and the pervasive mumble of prayer left an abiding memory of that place. My trip had been funded by the patrons of O'Shea's pub in Clonskeagh. I will always remember, on my return to Dublin, being met at the airport by the head barman and some of the patrons with what I construed as their great disappointment that their hard work in getting me to Lourdes hadn't been rewarded with a "cure".
Your worst holiday?
Butlins, at Mosney. At that stage we had two very young children, and our eldest son got sick every time we left him in the nursery to get a short break or to go for meals in the main dining hall. The weather was also bad that summer. We abandoned the holiday midway through to return to the sanity of our home.
Your best holiday?
I've been very fortunate in having had the opportunity to visit many parts of the world. As a consequence it is difficult to single one out. If pushed it would have to be Florida, when, on a family holiday, we went beyond the rituals of Disney and MGM into off-the-beaten-track towns such as Silver Springs and St Augustine.
If budget or work was no restriction, what would be your dream holiday?
That would have to be to dawdle down the mission towns of California, starting with San Francisco.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday?
My wife, Terry, not because she is my most valuable holiday asset but because she's the one person who can put up with my need to rise early, immerse in the locale and rub shoulders with the natives and not to party all night.
Favourite place in Ireland?
For years we holidayed on the Hook Peninsula, Co Wexford, and stayed in Fethard-on-Sea. The many (then) unpopulated beaches and the family-friendly sunny southeast made this a haven from work.
What book would you recommend for holiday?
I subscribe to the audio version of the New Yorker. I save up my reading for maybe two months before holidaying, in order to have upwards of 16 hours of listening. When on holiday last March in Melbourne and Thailand, I read Michael Wood's Story of India and recommend this.
Where to next?
We revisit Thailand every year. Terry and I look forward to the magic of Chiangmai and the beaches at Hua Hin. We will go back again and again, as long as fuel surcharges and our health permit.