Insider View - on Staycations

Lucy Madden contemplates the gentle pleasures of the ‘staycation’:“A day out in, say, the Glens of Antrim or even the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre can be more restorative than two trans Atlantic flights”

A neighbour, a lady of Scandinavian origin who likes to talk of her peripatetic lifestyle, and who I meet occasionally queuing in the post office, always asks me the same question. “And where are you going on holiday this year?” The tone is loud and imperious. Since the answer has been, in the last couple of years, nowhere, I heard myself, as the post office queue strained to hear the answer, replying to her most recent enquiry ‘Costa Rica.’

That was a black lie; not only is it a country that I would not put on a list of places to see before you die, its exact location is unknown to me. I would be unable to state one fact about the place, not even its capital city. I shall have to change post offices to avoid any future embarrassing questioning about my Central American adventures.

The ‘staycation’ has become a fact of life, for us and for others and really there is nothing to be ashamed of about it. Boasting about foreign travel seems vulgar these days; we just don’t want people from other countries to stay at home. There is so much to be said for not going abroad, the most obvious plus being the avoidance of airports, but too there’s no need to pack suitcases or put the pets into kennels or leave precious plants to their own devices.

A day out in, say, the Glens of Antrim or even the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre can be more restorative than two trans Atlantic flights. Staycations have the added advantage of getting to know your own country and in the process seeing it through the eyes of strangers. For this reason I am irresistibly impelled to follow brown signs. Sadly, these days this can mean being led to many an auction in waiting.

Proceeding up the Main Street in Naas the other day, I had to make a sharp right turn seduced, although the sign was blue, by the invitation to take ‘The Naas Tourist Trail’. A sign spoke of the Norman origins of the town of Naas, the word itself meaning Gathering of the Kings. This was promising so we strolled into a narrow and winding street; on one side old walls sheltered the remains of St. David’s Castle, then what seemed to be the ruins of a church, and at the end the charming sight of a lovingly tendered private garden around a cottage.

We looked, admiringly, at the, horticultural display wondering at its existence because the light that should have nurtured it was cut out by an edifice of rusting metals, concrete and broken glass that seemed to lean from the other side of the street. Over the whole a monstrous crane pointed at the sky. This abandoned structure had been intended as a shopping centre, but out of what greed and stupidity was this building ever permitted in the first place, towering over the medieval lane? Are planning choices made with impunity?

Other towns have been more successful in safe-guarding heritage, so it would seem. Take, for example Westport in Co. Mayo; this always strikes me as a place deserving of its tourists. Although, ironically, it is now from where the much overused Botox is produced, it’s a place that has kept its character and charm; there are plenty of interesting places to eat, local crafts are everywhere, there are galleries, book shops, fresh fish on sale (and this can’t be said about every sea-side town in Ireland), a wonderful fruit and vegetable shop, many a brown sign and cleverly the grasping fingers of the supermarket chains are not in evidence.

Westport does have a superb location, and was one of the few planned towns in Ireland, designed in the 18th century by James Wyatt, but its custodians strike me as deserving praise. Even the cinema and leisure centre have been slotted in with discretion. Film going and indoor sports facilities are important activities in a country with a dismal climate which incidentally begs the question; why has it been so difficult to see the marvellous ‘The Artist’ in rural Ireland and why do we have to be denied the chance to see so many films of quality? The good news for film lovers in this country is that the Light House cinema in Dublin’s Smithfield has re-opened. Now there’s a destination for a day out.

It is 20 years since a garden restoration grant prompted us to open our gardens to the public, assured that the visitor numbers would run into thousands. This was not to be, and in one year, we welcomed just 60 visitors through the gates. Living in a border county where destinations for days out are few, it strikes me that the zeitgeist is now right for entrepreneurial people to provide such attractions and yes, garden openings must be high on the list.

We staycationers don’t ask for much; perhaps a cultural experience or even just a pleasant place to linger with a cup of tea on offer. Costa Rica, now where exactly is that?