My teen holidays

In conversation with SANDRA O'CONNELL

Niamh Greene, author

MY FIRST solo travel was to the Gaeltacht for three weeks. My Mum used to write me these fantastic letters which I still treasure.

Next I au paired in France when I was 18. I lived with a family of aristocrats in a chateau in the Loire Valley. It was terrific.

I was 20 before I went on holiday with friends. We went to Tenerife and all got food poisoning. On top of that we were suffering from culture shock – it was wild and not at all what we expected.

Rules for a Perfect Lifeby Niamh Greene is out now

Mark Granier, poet

WHEN I was 17 I ended up grouse beating on an estate in Perth, Scotland and got beaten up by a Glaswegian boot boy in the process. My mother thought I was being looked after by an older cousin but he got a job on an oil rig and was gone. So I just drifted in to it. It was an experience. There’s a poem about it in my new collection, Fade Street. Actually I got a few poems out of that trip so it wasn’t all bad.

Trevor Welch, sports anchor TV3

AS A TEEN I used to travel to the UK with my brother a lot, to Old Trafford. At 19 I went to Greece with a friend. My two sisters were living there at the time, near Corfu. I can remember dressing up as a female kissogram to surprise my sister, and she fell for it. I also remember a bar owner being so impressed by my dancing to Rock Me Amadeus that he stood us all free drinks.

Mary Wilson, RTÉ Radio 1 Drivetime presenter

I WAS 19 before I went on an overseas holiday. I went to Tenerife with (journalist) Justine McCarthy. We were students together and thought we’d head off on this mad escapade, which was very tame in retrospect.

It was your typical studio apartment with a pool. You had to be down early to put a towel on or miss the sun loungers. It was great fun and we thought we were just the bee’s knees for going.

Tanya Airey, MD Sunway Travel

MOST OF my teenage holidays were spent in a mobile home in Carne, in Wexford. It’s ironic, given that my grandfather set up Sunway, but my mother just didn’t like going away.

My first holiday on my own was after my Leaving Cert. It wasn’t the big group event it is now, just me, my friend and my friend’s older sister. We went to Greece island hopping. It was an amazing holiday but I was glad we had someone older to mind us.

Georgina Campbell, food writer

I’M FROM Cornwall and we used to drive to Kent where an old second World War army transport plane would ferry cars to the Continent. We’d park our car where the tanks used be and go sit up behind the pilot.

Most of my teenage holidays were with family but, when I finished my A-levels, I au paired in France for a year and have very mixed feelings about it. Then again, it made Ireland seem great when I got to Queens.

Orlaith Blaney, MD McCann Erickson advertising agency

THERE WERE six of us kids so there was no budget to be heading to Marbella or the like. It wasn’t until I was able to pay for it from my own pay packet that I made it abroad for a holiday, when I was 19.

I went to Ibiza with three friends from college. I remember being very impressed on the first day when the lady who came in to clean the apartment said “Ola”, I thought she knew my name.

Liz McManus, Labour TD

WHEN I was 16 I stayed in Courtown, Co Wexford, with friends. There were eight in the caravan at one stage. It was all bags of chips and hanging around and it was just great fun.

My first overseas holiday with friends was when I was 20. I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to Yellowstone Park, which was stunningly beautiful but a little too close to nature at times, like when a huge brown bear caused a commotion outside our tent.

Trish Morrissey, PR consultant

WE NEVER went abroad as a family. It wasn’t until I was 18 that I managed to go with a friend. We went to Greece island hopping for five weeks. What I remember most is being sick on a 22-hour ferry trip.

I also remember sitting in a square with my friend bitching about some guys we knew in college, when right at that moment they walked across the square. We nearly knocked the table over trying to hide but really, what were the chances?