Throwback Thursday: 5 generations of our family have gone on holiday to Courtmac’

We’re still in the holiday season and so many of us instinctively hark back to those golden days of childhood when the summers seemed endless and school in September was still mercifully far away.

Where do you remember most from those holidays? Was there somewhere your family favoured over the years, or did they try new places every time?

Throwback Thursday reader Mary Holly writes with palpable love and affection of the place that has been her family’s summer destination for several generations:

“One hundred years ago this summer, my mother and her family visited Courtmacsherry for the first time. This is how it all came about,” says Mary.

“Mum’s oldest sister, Lena O’Donovan, worked in a solicitor’s office on the South Mall and one of her work colleagues, Jos, came from Courtmac’. They became friendly and Jos became a frequent visitor to the O’Donovan home in Glasheen. She often talked about her home place and mum’s family asked many questions, which led Jos to suggest that the family came and see for themselves what Courtmac’ had to offer.

“The oldest photo I have of the O’Donovans on holiday in Courtmac’ dates from 1926 when my mother was 11 years old. It was taken at Broad Strand (where I have been swimming every day this summer) and it shows my grandmother, Hannah O’Donovan, surrounded by her family, daughters Lena (O’Neill), Maureen and Girlie (Holly, my mother); her sons, Dan, Sean and Michael, and two friends, the O’Connell sisters.”

Mary adds: “I have consulted the wider family and have come up with a list of 30 properties in the Courtmac’ area that our extended family have either rented or owned over the past 100 years.

“Each generation has continued their association with this special place and my son commented to me recently that when he turns from Old Chapel for Timoleague, his heart lifts and he knows he is heading to his happy place.

“There is another precious photo which shows my mother Girlie and father Joe Holly sitting on the wall opposite Diarmuid O’Mahony’s house (formerly the Post Office). That was taken prior to my parents marriage in 1945.

“Dad had come down to be indoctrinated into the only acceptable destination for future holidays, but of course it wouldn’t be acceptable for him to stay in the same house as his fiancée! Oh no, he was lodged further down the street with Mrs Fleming, my friend Diarmuid’s grandmother!”

Mary continues: “The third photo has fascinated me for years. It was taken in The Point field, a well known beauty spot in Courtmac’. My uncles, Barry on the right and Michael on the left, were camping there. They flank my father, Joe, as they sing. Dad was the choirmaster at the SMA church in Wilton, so perhaps they were getting in some choir practice?

“Notice the crucifix over the entrance to the tent and the shotgun propped in the right hand side. I have no explanation and alas nobody to ask anymore.

“Now I am the grandmother who welcomes her 12 grandchildren to Courtmac’ each summer, five generations in an unbroken line who have loved and love this place and find peace and friendship here.”

“I am sure other readers will have their special havens and will want to extol their virtues. All I can say is that each day as I walk across the sand towards the water in Broad Strand I say to myself, ‘Mary, you are one lucky person, Thank-you God for this wonderful place’.”

Written straight from the heart, Mary, and we are certain other readers’ hearts will feel its echo.

Inchydoney is another place packed with memories of golden summer holidays. There is a great site on Facebook called Inchydoney – The Wonder Years full of stories from those who love this wonderful seaside resort with not just one but two endless stretches of sand.

Philip Neville posted a piece there recently, taken from Irish Heritage News, concerning the famous hotel (not the present one, but its predecessor) and we thought you should enjoy it too, as it will most certainly make you want to check out this Facebook group.

“Inchydoney Ocean Hotel, as it was originally called, was erected in the early 1930s. It was located on ‘the island’ just 3km from Clonakilty in West Cork,” begins the article.

“This seaside resort was situated on its own grounds of 150 acres, which boasted quality hard tennis courts and a 9-hole golf links. Bathing, boating and fishing were among the other activities enjoyed by the hotel’s residents.

“Equipped with a ballroom, dances and fancy-dress parties were regularly held at the hotel, with the inaugural dance of Inchydoney Golf Club having taken place there on September 26, 1934, between 9.30pm and 3am. Billy Foley’s Band was playing on the night but Pat Crowley’s Band was a more regular fixture at Inchydoney in the 1930s and ’40s.

“Especially popular was the hotel’s regular ‘monster whist drive and dance’, as well as its carnival dances. The Red Cross also frequently held dances there.

“In 1936, the District Justice ordered that the dances be limited to the hours of 8pm to 1am, but this was appealed and the usual 3am finish was reinstated.

“By 1937, Inchydoney Hotel was responsible for increased numbers of tourists visiting the area, and the hotel was by now advertising itself as the ‘most modern, all-electric hotel’.”

The article contains a photo of Inchydoney Hotel taken in the 1940s, which appeared on a postcard published by ‘H. Rosehill, Cork’.

It explained: “Harry Rosehill, a well-known Jewish businessman, arrived in Cork in 1906 and opened a music store there. Harry’s son Fred, who was born on MacCurtain Street, Cork, worked in the store, and also opened a picture-framing shop; the postcard is likely a product of Fred’s business. Some of his best-selling lines were holy pictures that he sold to Catholics.

“Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa stands on the site of the former hotel which was demolished in 1997.”

Philip, we have reproduced your marvellous postcard here, and suspect it will bring many more readers over to the Facebook page of Inchydoney – The Wonder Years! And the very next time any of us are down that way, we will look at the very elegant newer hotel and think of the glamorous older one which offered tennis, golf, fancy dress events, and whist drives way back before World War II.

Alan Foley, founder and artistic director of Cork City Ballet, is a confirmed Fountainstown-er, having spent all his childhood summers in that Mecca.

He says: “During the 1970s, the Foley family of ten stayed in their caravan on the road leading to the club. Somehow, we managed to fit in, as we were all pretty small then. We got a bigger mobile home soon after the photo I am sending to you was taken.”

Alan adds: “Saturday evenings were a logistical feat: eight children, one caravan, Sunday Mass the following morning, but somehow everyone emerged washed, dressed, and ready, before piling into grand-uncle Frank McGirl’s Mini for the journey to the church in Crosshaven. A caravan further down the road belonged to the owner of a burgundy Rolls-Royce with a cream leather interior. Frank McGirl’s Mini was burgundy too, just with rather less leather, considerably more passengers, and a lifetime of happy memories!”

As we saw above, Mary Holly is celebrating a century of her family’s association with Courtmacsherry. It so happens that Fountainstown Community Sports Club is celebrating 90 years of its existence on Sunday, August 30, and Alan has good reason to join in those festivities.

“I attended my very first dance class in the club with local teacher Helen O’Sullivan. I had tagged along with my sister Catherine, and that was it! In fact, I won my first dance competition representing the club at the annual dance championships held at Connolly Hall.

“In the 1980’s, I watched Flashdance at the Lee Cinema in Cork and remember how I burst out of the cinema, dancing through the pouring rain with a dream taking hold!”

From those early dance classes in the club, Alan’s journey took him to the Mariinsky stage in St Petersburg (where he became the first Irish student to study ballet at the world-famous Vaganova Academy) before continuing his training in London and New York, and dancing on some of the world’s greatest stages.

“Yet, for all the theatres and cities his career has taken him to, it is Fountainstown that still draws him home each summer. “It’s where I belong, where, as soon as I breathe the air, I know I’m home,” says Alan.

We were talking about Youghal quite a bit over the last few weeks. This writer’s brother, Tom, remembers our family holiday there that summer of 1954 when John Huston was filming Moby Dick in the town.

“Great pictures those were, up on Throwback Thursday last week,” observed Tom. “Really brought it all back to me. I remember going down into the town with our mother, and just where the road divides there was a bakery. I had my very first cream doughnut ever there!”

That summer, we kids played on the beach, yearned for unlimited pocket money to ride the ponies on the sand or the roundabout at Perk’s Fun Fair, while our tireless mother made a big pot of porridge in the kitchen of the guest house each morning to feed her five offspring, thereby presumably defraying the costs somewhat. But naturally enough our energetic papa scorned such boring activities.

“He would take his motorbike down to the very edge of the sea at low tide,” recalls Tom, “and make a run at the sand dunes at Clay Castle. He would get up nearly all the way, but then there was a low sort of bank which he couldn’t get over. That was the ‘Sun’ he was riding, as I recall. ‘The James’ was gone by then.”

Tom is one of those people (my other brother, Gilbert, is the same) who can recall an endless stream of motor licence numbers, be it bike or car.

“Pa bought his first James bike in December, 1950, from Farrelly’s in Tuckey Street. They were the James dealers at the time. ZF2938.”

Are you sure of that number, 76 years on?

Tom looks surprised at such a question. “Of course. But it wasn’t a good bike. The chain kept coming off during grasstrack races because it had a plunger back suspension, which was a bad design.

“His second James (ZO 5215) had no suspension, and that was much better. He bought from Stanley Woods (the legendary motorcycle rider) and it was sent down by train from Dublin. I went down to the station with him to collect it, and we wheeled it home to where we were living then on Adelaide Terrace, Summerhill. He kept it in the hall, and there was barely room to squeeze past it!”

Hang on, Tom, I remember garden paths and steps and all sorts to navigate between that house and the roads (Summerhill to the front, Wellington Road to the back). How did he get it out again? “He kept a board handy by the steps up to the back gate, and would run it up that.”

What a memory! Listen, the rest of you, let’s have some more stories of those wonderful sand-strewn holidays of childhood, be it Robert’s Cove or Rocky Bay, further afield at Barley Cove, or over the hills in Kerry.

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