“Thank god for ‘quiet time’, which is what we call the iPad sessions. In the throws [sic] of a family ‘anti-holiday’, as I have now christened it, with my twin 15-month-olds and 3.5-year-old. It is sheer hell and we aren’t even somewhere alien or sweltering hot. We are in feckin’ southwest Ireland, where it has literally p****ed rain for the last 8 days, staying with the in-laws. I actually sent the offspring out in the driving rain today to ‘play’ in the back garden. Think the mother-in-law now has social services on speed dial. Quite literally counting the days till we get back to London.”
— from the comments section of a recent article in The Guardian on how to survive family holidays.
I think this year could finally mark the end of the Irish summer holiday. From now on, we’re going to have to pay people to vacation in this country, including ourselves.
This is the year when Failte Ireland — or whatever it’s calling itself these days — will shut up shop, hand back the keys, and finally tell the taxpayer: “ Ah look, lads, we were only having a laugh.”
How can a country with a climate like ours have a tourist industry? It was doomed from the start. And so much for the staycation, where the natives are pulled into the scam which was originally aimed at foreigners, who we never liked much, and returned emigrants, who we have always hated in the most dishonest way possible.
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Our tourist industry has always been a bit Father Ted, hasn’t it? But now it’s beyond ridiculous.
Earlier this month we were brought the vision of the 178 New York pilgrims getting off the plane at Knock airport. There’s Bishop Brennan — I mean the Archbishop of New York, His Grace Timothy Dolan. And who’s that busy fellow in the high-vis vest helping old ladies down the steps of the plane? Oh yeah, it’s our taoiseach. Is Knock by any chance in his constituency? Affirmative. And is he telling the pilgrims that they are being baptised by the driving rain? Remarkably, yes.
Enda Kenny is paid to do that — my point is that we should all be. There is optimism and then there is delusion. When people start to write to the papers about how bad their holidays in Ireland are, while still on those same holidays, then it’s time to call it a day.
The man I am about to quote wrote to the Irish Mail on Sunday recently from a mobile home in the west — or, as Failte Ireland would have it, The West. Wherever he was, he didn’t like it.
“Myself, my wife and three children are holidaying in a mobile home park. Our day normally starts with rain banging on the tin roof at 5am and continues like this. We’ve been having marathon snakes & ladders games. Yesterday, there was a slight break in the rain so we headed to the beach. By the time we got there the rain had started again and the wind blew our only ball off towards America.
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“After I lit the barbecue last night, a gust of wind lifted it and flung it through the window of the mobile home. We fashioned an improvised window out of cling film and Sellotape. Today looks less promising. I think we’ve lost the dice for the snakes & ladders and have one colouring book left. Only 10 days to go,” he wrote.
Our friend is to be admired for maintaining his sense of humour. He probably needed it when he got the bill for the mobile home, because that’s the other problem with an Irish holiday — it’s expensive as well as a nightmare.
The letter reminded me of a friend who recently took a holiday house in her home county. Her brother was home from Australia and she needed somewhere for him and her extended family to stay. The rental was just a short drive from the town they all grew up in and seemed the perfect solution.
The town, once prosperous, turned out to be so run down that after the first day they didn’t bother going again. It was too depressing. Instead, they decided to stick with the beautiful holiday beaches of their childhood.
It rained for six days out of seven. The washing machine in the rented house broke down and the wind kept them awake at night as it howled round the very large bungalow. They began to feel under siege, and went a bit peculiar. When the temperature dropped further they refused to turn on the central heating, because they had somehow taken against their holiday landlady. “We wouldn’t give her the satisfaction,” they shouted, as they piled into two cars and set off to buy more fleeces.
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One night, in the kitchen, two of the sisters swore a solemn oath that they would never holiday in Ireland again. When their brother comes home in future they’re going to hire a holiday home in France. As for him walking the haunts of his childhood, he can make his own arrangements. “Let him do what he likes,” they declared.
It is at such moments of cultural and familial breakdown that a wise government instigates a grant system. It’s time we were paid to holiday at home.