IRISH summers – aren't they great? Wind, rain, hailstones, lightning, lighting the fire, wearing sunglasses to keep your eyes dry when you go outside, donning winter coats in July, one epic day of sunshine. It's all very character building.
And with the unstable economic outlook and with us being soon-to-be non-EU citizens, it looks like we all might be experiencing the good old Irish summer holiday for generations to come.
Perhaps God created the Irish to stay indoors, because our rain is apocalyptic and our skin paler than the light of Jesus so that the first sign of sun leaves us looking like lobsters. One reason to stay at home for the holidays.
The Irish summer holiday is unlike any other one in the known universe. You are at least guaranteed rain, if nothing else, as well as many memories to regale your friends with as you travel through the years.
My parents just loved holidaying in Ireland. Every year we would all pile into my father's unreliable red Ford Cortina and head off into the countryside, egg-and-onion sandwiches for the journey and extra bottles of flat 7Up incase anyone got sick while we were away.
There were no people carriers in those days, and scant safety concerns. There were four of us crammed into the back car – safety measures meant that we put the two friends in the boot and maybe one of us on the lap of the front seat passenger. We spent hours in that sweaty car queuing at the British army checkpoints – piling out as the car was searched, piling back in; having to push the car due to it not starting – before heading off into God's country to visit campsites the length and breadth of Ireland, blessing ourselves at every church and graveyard from Derry to Dingle.
Perhaps the gulf stream has moved since those days, because I don't remember summers being as miserable or as wet when I was growing up.
What I do remember is getting terribly sunburnt and having to sit in the shade, lathered in sudocreme for most of a trip to Mayo. Or having an asthma attack on the first hour in a holiday home in Sligo when my brother jumped on a bed, unleashing 10 years worth of dormant dust into my face. Or fracturing my ankle and spending nine hours in a country casualty unit. Or having to drive 80 miles back home because I thought I forgot to turn the immersion heater off when I was asked.
I was really great fun to take on holiday. But despite it all, you can keep your Lanzarote – we had a brilliant time, rain, hail, hospital dramas and all.
My friends have similar experiences of the good old Irish summer holiday.
One friend remembers summer day trips to wet and windy Irish beaches along the Wild Atlantic Way. Her Mum ordering the kids out into the elements to get some 'air' while she and Dad sat in the car listening to music on the radio and drinking tea from a flask. She also recalls pulling up at the side of the road on the way home to 'collect' turf only to realise years later that they were stealing it.
Another friend remembers being given free things at the shop 'down south' by spinning yarns to the little old lady behind the counter about his awful life on the mean streets of in Belfast. He lived off the Malone Road.
Another friend has a vivid memory of a wet week's holiday in Bundoran turning into a horror film when a man who was warned by the beach lifeguard not to swim beyond the marker rope coming back on to the shore carrying his own severed arm after he was bashed against rocks.
Another was taken to the holy town of Knock every year for her holidays, another as a teenager to Lough Derg where she was made to walk around for two days with no food or sleep. Disneyland was a million miles away from the shores of that holy place for that poor girl.
There must be something that attracts thousands of tourists to our shores every year. Maybe we should embrace the rain and the quirkiness, forget Spain and make Irish summer holiday memories for our own kids.
