My kids are now seeing Ireland for themselves, after years of lapping up Cork holiday stories, writes MIRIAM O'CALLAGHAN
FOR ME, summer means my mother, my aunt and mules. Not that the sisters were Bedouin traders, scouring the Sahara for the Holy Family’s trademark transport. It was that for our family, summer began when they went to town and bought their seasonal, soft leather sandals. A generation later, talk of my own mules used to crack up the office. “Mules! A Cork one definitely.” But, they took to mules as naturally as they took to “langer” and by the time I left, there were black, jewelled and gold mules, flip-flopping along the corridors of power.
My daughter’s summer shoes are Lelli Kellys, all rose-petal pink, icing-sugar delight, made by elves. Given that we don’t do labels in my family, a reference to these confections as “Manolos for children” left me antsy. Never mind that I had two pairs myself, something that brought a restaurant to a standstill as little girls gasped “look at that Mum . . . she’s wearing Lellis!” Whether with joy or horror, I’m not sure. But, believe me, Lelli Kellys are the only upside to being a proper grown-up and a shoe size 35. Not so much feet, as hooves.
This gorgeous rosy apparel is a far cry from the Clarks sandals and rubber dollies of childhood. No, not a fetish. Just the trainers worn by generations of Cork children, kicked to death every day and restored religiously with shoe whitener every night. The shoes, not the children. Some days back, as we watched the Space Shuttle dazzle across the sky, I thought of the summer of 1969. Cork could well have been a landmark on the lunar journey. Thousands of rubber dollies, glowing on window-ledges, an eerie beacon for the space traveller in summer.
That first summer space night, rubber dollies on the pad, ready for the morrow, my father and I were diligently doing the borders, cutting them straight along a plank of wood, our eyes nystagmic, shooting, dancing from earth to sky, him turning the spade in the ground while I whirled the glamorous words “lunar module” over my tongue.
Back then, we never “took” holidays. We “went” on them instead. Anyway, thanks to my father, ours were always “holliers!” – exclamation implied. Our neighbours went to Ballinskelligs or Courtown harbour or Ardmore. One time the O’Sheas went to Spain, when everyone knew that going on a plane involved religious fervour and destinations such as Lourdes or Fatima or Rome. Occasionally, you flew to your cousins in America for a wedding, or more likely a funeral. Pilgrimages of their own.
A generation on, my children are blessed enough to know Italy’s white roads like they know their own home. But for their mother and aunts, holliers! meant the seaside at Youghal in Co Cork, when a week was the summer and a fortnight was forever.
Youghal was luminous, watery, exotic. We didn’t have a car, so we went by train, all leather window straps, scratchy carpetbag seats, glittering floors and piercing whistles. On the way, we tortured ourselves with thoughts of what if . . . what if our hair caught in the door and we were dragged all the way? What if we had our heads out the window inside a tunnel: would they smush, or would they sever?
Today, my own two do much the same thing. Relishing their mother’s fear of flying, they start. What if the plane went into space? What if an earthquake pushed the Alps up just as we were passing? Would we be stranded on Mont Blanc?
What if that nuclear power station, Lego-like below us, suddenly went whoosh? They take a moment. Then, in tandem, “cool!”
While my high fliers note the landmarks – Elba, Genoa, the Alps, Paris, then suddenly, it’s Dublin! my own summer reference points were far more thrilling.
Every day, the silent sand underfoot. Holding my father’s hand on the boreen to Redbarn. The summer houses – converted railway carriages – oblongs of red and green like building bricks from school, low-slung in the salty fields. The woodbine on the way to Summerfield House and my father’s pint of black milk, taken to his lip on the first Angelus bell. Every night we walked to town past Blackwater Cottons, Seafield Fabrics and the two true indicators of absolute summer sophistication: the words Courvoisier and Victualler. Today, only a neon Martini sign I know has a similar, soul-stabbing effect. Any time, any place, anywhere . . .
Then, at journey’s end would come what we’d waited for all day, all year: the Merries – to non-Corkonians, amusements – a jewelburst of feather-crowned ponies and stumpy bumpers, sparkling between inky bay and sky.
This year, we’re holidaying at home – holiday being an exaggeration. More a couple of days devouring the sudden, shocking value in a hotel by the Lee. Having slept for years on stories of Youghal, Rosscarbery and Castlefreke, of lapping Gougane Barra and honey-bee Coolea, it’s time the children saw and felt them for themselves.
“Here’s where you had to walk the six miles to Mass on Sunday. There’s where Grandad Pat caught the seagull when he was fishing. Here’s the guesthouse where you had the measles, ruined the holliers for everyone . . . ”
They have to get a close up of the exact spot – the actual spot, Mom – where a clunky truck collided with a slow sparrow, leaving a tincture of pink on the road and a small girl open-mouthed in the shocked garden of the guesthouse alongside. They’re agreed. That’s going to be best bit by far.
It’ll be tricky, fitting a lifetime of summers into a couple days. Trickier still to manage children’s expectations of perfection. We’ll do our best. Anyway, this is not their summer at all. It’s their aunt’s, my sister’s.
Happy holidays wherever you take them. Happy 40th, Orlaith. Happy days.
Miriam O’Callaghan is a freelance writer living in Italy. Breda O’Brien is on leave