When life's a beach

BOLT HOLES:Meet five lucky families who can escape to their beach-side homes and periodically live life to the rhythms of the ocean waves and collect dinner from the shore, writes ALANNA GALLAGHER

Swedish style house – paradise for the kids and grandkids

Restaurateurs Roddy and Maureen Hickson live on a shingle beach in Co Wexford. Having lived in Sweden, Roddy built the place so that his kids could experience the feel of a Swedish timber house. They have the beach to themselves most days, save for the stalwart swimmers.

“It is a children’s paradise, which is why I bought it. I wanted to capture for my kids the childhood that I had. Our own kids have grown up and now they come back with their children. We have an annex where they come and stay. We fly kites together, fish for gurnard off the rocks using limpets as bait, go crabbing and explore the darkest corners of the rock pools.

“The energy is wonderful amidst the elements of water and wind. On a stormy day it feels invigorating, exciting and calming. We can see up to Arklow Head and enjoy the elegant movements of the Arklow windmills. At night, the light boats and buoys light up the bay.”

Roddy and Maureen run Papa Rhodes a restaurant in Ballycanew, open Wednesday-Sunday in July and seven days a week during August. It is open for lunch from 1-3.30 pm and for dinner from 6- 9.30pm. Tel: 053-9427533.

The lighthouse family

Interior designer Helen Turkington has a beach-front bolthole on Carnfield Beach in Co Down, a place she used to go to with her uncle when she was a child.

It’s a lighthouse cottage that was built in 1806. The house, in south Co Down, has four-bedrooms; two have bunk beds with pull-out beds so they can sleep up to six kids in one room. Turkington was looking for a bolt hole in which to spend quality time with her three kids; Tilly, aged nine, Freddie, seven, and Florie, six.

Cranfield Beach is a stretch of white sand that is about three quarters of a mile long. “We walk it every day. There is never anyone else on it. It is like our own private strand.

“We paddle and scour the rock pools for crabs. There is very little swimming as the water is freezing.”

It is not the most attractive looking of houses, says Turkington, but looks were not the point. It is a total switch-off for the designer who divides her time between London and Dublin.

“We eat in all the time. There is no satellite TV. We play very basic games like Guess Who?, Connect 4 and snap. There is also a Wii, which the kids don’t have in their Dublin home. At night we have bowls of pasta on our knees while watching movies.” Turkington and her husband, Garvan Walsh escape there every other weekend. In winter the wind howls around the house.

“It gives city kids a sense of the land. The children were fascinated by the lambs last spring.”

Turkington and her husband are relishing their time together with the kids. “Once they get older they won’t want to come here. Time spent here is family time. Most of all I love the freedom. I’m not worried when they walk out the door.”

Interior designer Helen Turkington has two shops in Dublin, on Dunville Avenue, Dublin 6, and at 7 Terminus Mills, Clonskeagh, Dublin 6, and one in London. She also created a paint range for Colortrend.

Beach shack 15 miles from Dublin

A beach shack on North Beach in Rush, Co Dublin, has been in Morgan Sheridan’s family for three generations.

It is made from two decommissioned Dublin trams with a roof above to knit them together. The family also added white walls to the property boundary. Sheridan, a gardener and furniture designer, spent his childhood summers here. One August he recalls shoals of mackerel so big “that we were able to scoop the mackerel from the water with our hands. You no longer see that.” He likes to go for a swim and then head to the Harbour Bar for a pint. “When it rains it feels like you’re living under an umbrella rather than a real roof.

You can hear and feel every rain drop. At night you get lulled to sleep by the sound of the crashing waves. “It’s only 15 miles from Dublin and yet you feel like you’re on another planet. Being there brings a sense of liberty, of escape, of getting away from it all. It is casual, relaxed and simple.”

Morgan Sheridan is a landscape gardener and furniture maker 086 398 4662

Mobile home for watersports and foraging

Wine merchant Gavin Watchorn has been going to Lettergesh Beach, in Galway, since he was very young. The beach is a half mile of “pristine sand” framed by the Culfin Estuary and Mweelrea Mountain.

He and his wife Julie Murray bought a mobile home there 18 months ago to introduce their kids to their beach. Sam, eight, (pictured above) and Lucca, five, adore playing in the sand and bringing back found objects. The mobile home is groaning under the weight of all the stones and shells they’ve collected. “We also have a two-man kayak, go snorkelling, and do a bit of fishing. We have wetsuits so it doesn’t matter what the weather is like.”

When it’s dry the family loves to play cricket on the beach. There’s a wild mussel bed nearby and the family gathers the seafood to steam, barbecue atop seaweed or cook in white wine, garlic and cream. Do they ever get cabin fever? “One time we were here for two weeks and it rained non-stop for nine consecutive days. We ended the holiday early.”

BrechinWatchornWine is at 29 Dunville Avenue, Dublin 6, 01-4911763, bwwine.ie

Socialising on the Wexford coast

John Morris and his wife Sharon Griffin bought their mobile home in Kilgorman Holiday Park in Co Wexford 12 years ago.

Griffin had been coming here since she was a child and introduced Morris to the place. He was expecting “a Father Ted-style caravan buried in a field somewhere”.

Instead he discovered nirvana. The couple and their family have eschewed holidays abroad in favour of two months on the Wexford coast. “Summer is Kilgorman,” says Morris. “It’s the sound of the sea.”

Their park is just over the dunes from a “really private” beach. This is where their sons, Daragh, now 18 and Ben, 16, have summered every year until now.

Daragh has just finished his Leaving and is spending this summer in France washing dishes. The mobile home owners own the park, which makes for a tight-knit community. “It almost feels like a big commune,” says Griffin, “but in the best way.”

At night each of the eight owners in their area take it in turns to host a few glasses of wine. “It is very social.”

Every August they hold an annual site party with pony rides and tag rugby, tennis and five-aside tournaments. Then there’s a disco for the kids.

Thanks to a “bountiful supply” of grandparents the children are packed off to bed leaving the second wave of revellers, the parents, free to take over the dance floor and socialise.

[ Kilgormanholidaypark.ie ]