THIS was the year I discovered Enid Blyton. It was also the year I began to speak like a character out of an Enid Blyton novel. "Oh I say, this is jolly exciting, " I might say to my mother.

When my brother was mean to me, he was "a horrid beast" and my greatest aim in life was to find out what ginger ale tasted like.

Going on holidays to France really was jolly exciting. Aged five-and-ahalf, I could only remember two previous holidays . . . Wexford and Galway . . . and these hadn't involved sleeping on a ferry.

Sleeping on a ferry! And when we finally drove into the massive ship and I found out they sold gigantic boxes of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles, my life was complete.

Driving through France in sweltering June heat wasn't quite so much fun. As the smallest, I always had to sit in the middle. My Fruit Pastilles had long gone, I always needed loo stops at the most inopportune times and there was some definite tension as my father adjusted to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.

In Genouille on the west coast of France, a place that will always be 'John Wee' to me, we were meeting up with my parents' friends and their son Cian. He may have had the disadvantage of being a boy but, being my age, he was a great ally.

He introduced me to Roald Dahl's The Twits and let me play football with him.

Genouille lived up to expectations. A big house in a sleepy French village with a garden, swings and a nearby swimming pool . . . everything children would want.

As the days ticked by, my sister, the dedicated shopper, spent all her pocket money in record time. My brother famously came home with more money than he left with. I don't know what I spent mine on, apart from that box of Fruit Pastilles. But I know I had enough money left to buy another box on the ferry home and I was just as excited second time around.

Malachy Clerkin, Kerry, 1985
On the TV: U2 rocking Live Aid at Wembley

IT WAS the summer of 1985, Barry McGuigan had just won a world title and for a six-and-three-quarters-year-old boy in Monaghan, this was like a moon landing. A world boxing champion from just out the road. Imagine.

So when it turned out that just three weeks later Monaghan were in an Ulster final, well my head spun. And then it turned out my parents were packing my two sisters and I into the car and taking us to south Kerry, just about as far from the Ulster final as you could get. Apparently, I wasn't best pleased.

Still, it turned out to be one of those holidays that stayed with me. There were the five of us and another family of four . . . my uncle, aunt and cousins from Carlingford . . . in a rented house in Waterville for a fortnight (sorry about the photograph, Johnny and Emmett). It was my first time seeing Kerry, my first time riding a horse, my first time . . . and as far as I can make out, my only time . . . getting stung by a wasp. It was on the beach on Valentia. I stood on a banana skin and the bastard got me between my little toe and the next one over. I cried and cried and my mam and uncle Seamie put me into the car and drove around the island knocking on doors until they found somebody with a bottle of vinegar. Whether it was to neutralise the sting or to pour into my eye and really give me something to cry about is lost in the mists of time.

A few weeks later, Monaghan almost beat Kerry in Croke Park. If I thought it would do any good when they meet again this afternoon for the first time since then, I'd happily go tap-dancing through a hornets' nest.

Mick McCaffrey, caravaning in Ireland, 1986
Sporting memory: Stephen Roche winning the Tour de France

AH, HOLIDAYS in Ireland in the 1980s. The innocence of it all. My three sisters and I usually had about �2 spending money to last two weeks and mornings were spent planning what we would get for 20p in the local shop.

Imagine telling a 10year-old today they were going to Courtown for a fortnight. There'd be an uprising.

Every year my dad and I used to pack up the car full of enough clothes and duvets to last six people two weeks and drive to some obscure location that took about five hours to get to. We would get down to the caravan and unpack before picking my mam and sisters up from the train station.

The next 14 days would be spent combining leisure and educational activities. I think I saw WB Yeats's grave about seven different times as a lad. The only thing certain about a McCaffrey holiday was that it would rain solidly for the entire time we were there. I remember being woken by my dad in a caravan park in Sligo. The year was 1986 and there were winds of hurricane proportion pounding the country. My dad was worried the caravan would topple over with us in it. It didn't . . . but we all spent the night in our old Fiat Ritmo just in case.

Una Mullally, standby holidays, 1983 to early '90s
Number One: Jason Donovan's 'Sealed With A Kiss'
Wearing: Trucker baseball caps without irony

ALL my family summer holidays between my first as a baby in 1983 and the early '90s have kind of merged into one. My mum worked for the doomed TWA, so we got concession flights as long as we flew standby. This all seemed very glamorous to my friends but little did they know flying standby meant being made wear the dreaded 'plane clothes' . . .horrific dresses that even as a five-year-old I knew were uncool . . . and missing endless flights. By the end of a two-week holiday we would usually have to split up on separate flights with members of my family ending up in Paris, London Heathrow and Frankfurt.

Back then, I suffered from woeful travel sickness (usually puking in the car on the way to the airport) and would spend most of the flight with my head in a sick bag. My favourite feeling was stepping out of the airport's automatic doors when we arrived at Sarasota or Tampa. The heat and humidity would slap your face, covering it in memories from previous holidays and the prospect of new ones that would be created over the following fortnight. First things first: renting a car, which was always too small. In the back of an Oldsmobile, my siblings and I would make up various songs . . . all with the common denominators of toilet humour and slagging my mother's attire (all-in-one 'sun suits') . . . that were for some reason always to the tune of Craig McLoughlin's 'Mona'.

We managed to make the local papers twice throughout the years. Once, a photograph of my brother John and my dad struggling to unwind fishing line . . . their silhouettes taken against an almost gaudy sunset. The second time when I was the last person in the area to be stung by a jellyfish following an infestation of the creatures. I'm not very good with nature, as you can see. Clearly, the local Floridian media had a silly season too.

Claire O'Mahony Isle of Man, 1983 I wanted to be: In the Minipops THERE'S a tendency to mythologise your childhood holidays and airbrush out all of the tantrums, car sickness and repeated incidents of wandering off and having your name called out over the department-store tannoy by your frantic parents.

But damn it, they were better. The weather was always spectacular (you can't argue this one), you had a license to make yourself ill on chips and other assorted forbidden treats and, best of all, this was something you planned for and looked forward to.

The cavalier attitude we now have towards travel didn't exist back then and holidays were massive adventures not taken for granted.

In July 1983, the O'Mahony family took themselves off for a week to the Isle of Man, where the craic, as they say, was 90. It was a welcome break for me . . . I was soon to enter the big league, going into fourth class where Sr Monica would be my teacher. She was not a nun known for her tolerance of messy handwriting.

Mum said we stayed in Douglas, took trams, saw some traditional music in Port Erin and visited the Laxey Wheel. Those bits are sketchy but what I do recall is the strangely buttery ice-cream made from Jersey cream and a pinching competition with my sister Alison that lasted for the entire week.

She was my perfect complement in many respects in that she would only eat egg yolk and I would only eat white, she liked Ponch in the TV show Chips while I liked Jon and she was sunny natured while I was bossy.

We didn't pay too much attention to John, our younger brother, possibly because he was only five but more likely because, as a boy, he couldn't embrace the joy of matching outfits and pigtails. The dresses, incidentally, were purchased by my grandmother, a woman of great taste, in Shaws of Portlaoise.

Joe Coyle, Co Donegal, 1984
Sporting memory: Everton beating Watford 2-0 in FA Cup Final

THERE were many rainy days, of course there were, it's just that I can't remember them. I don't recall once being cooped up indoors, at a loss as to how to pass a few hours while the Donegal coastline was battered by wind and rain. Yes, there were times when we'd have to come inside . . . we weren't cave people . . .

but when the light would fade, a different world full of games like Connect 4, Twister and Buckaroo came into play.

We were born in Glasgow and spent our summer holidays split between our parents' home towns, Gortahork in the northwest of Donegal and Moville in the Inishowen peninsula. I loved both destinations, still do. Indeed, my family loved one of them so much that we left Glasgow in 1985 and moved to Gortahork, five months before I blew 10 candle flames out on a cream gateaux.

It was the summer before the move that I remember most fondly. For six weeks of that year, our little bodies were fuelled by fizzy sweets and sugary drinks (salad days indeed), with the occasional square meal in between. A mixed fruit drink called Football Special was a particular favourite, something that I've sadly failed to buy beyond the Donegal borders. These days, the mere sight of a bottle of that stuff brings me back 20 years to a time when soccer matches used to last about five hours, the trips to the beach lasted all day and life was so, so much simpler.

Ali Bracken, France, 1986
Number One: Run DMC's 'Walk This Way' was the anthem of the year

EVERY summer as a child, for as long as I can remember, my family went on camping holidays to France. Many of these trips have blurred into one but camping in St Jean de Luz in 1986 was particularly memorable, thanks to a hurricane that demolished the campsite and found us stuck on a beach in a massive sandstorm.

My mum, dad, sister Claire (aged eight) and me (aged six), were sitting on a beach near the campsite about a week into the holiday. My mum noticed a big black cloud over the sea and remarked to my dad that it looked strange. Then the sand seemed to explode and I could no longer see or hear anything. It was terrifying. Wrapped in towels, we made our way to shelter behind a massive wall.

There were hundreds of people behind it and the men went to get cars and come back and drive everyone off the beach. I remember crying when my dad went off, afraid he wouldn't come back. The plan worked and we eventually got back to the campsite. It was one of those massive French sites with hundreds of tents, caravans and a village.

Everything had been levelled. At the spot where our tent once stood, our belongings were strewn everywhere. At this point, Claire and I went into excitement overdrive. I don't think my parents were as enthused as they searched for our passports and travellers' cheques. But for us kids it was the best adventure ever. Searching for my teddy in a massive campsite became the ultimate hide-and-seek.

The torrential rain lasted for the second week of the holiday and my mum vowed we'd never holiday on the west coast of France again. But despite everything, my parents say they enjoyed it, mainly due to the copious quantities of wine they consumed to cope with the stress.

Miguel Delaney, 1980s, Spain
I wanted to be: Paul McGrath

BEING half-Spanish, my childhood holidays, predictably enough, involved a trip to Spain every year. Despite complaining of the monotony of it all . . . and, even at a young age, getting given out to by friends for taking 400 weather for granted . . . I'd quickly get over it when I'd realise we'd be arriving in the middle of fiesta time.

My mother's family is from just outside Pamplona, where they host the famous San Fermin festival and the running of the bulls, and throughout July and August every small town in the area stages their own smaller version. This meant a childhood summer wouldn't be complete without wrapping the customary red handkerchief around my neck, goading seven very large and very angry beasts from the sidelines and seeing a drunken American tourist . . . who had of course eschewed the advice of the locals . . . get his buttocks gored.

Another big part of the fiestas are the bullfights, although this was the one element I never enjoyed. They may be the centrepieces of the festivals with the atmosphere of a football match, but my strongest memory of them are eight-year-old tears at the sight of an eviscerated, dying animal.

Despite the fact I'd never countenance the thought of being a vegetarian, such was the trauma of it I've refused to go back to a bullfight since. Strange I never felt such sympathy for the American tourist.

Of course, the festivals aren't just about the bulls. Essentially they are like Patrick's Day with a Latin touch that goes on for a week. The streets are filled with live music, communal dinners and huge parties, topped off at the end by a huge fireworks show.

Work and wanderlust mean I haven't been as frequently in recent years but, when I do go, the trip hasn't changed much now I'm an adult . . . I still don't have the huevos to brave running with the bulls.

Shane Coleman, Courtown Co Wexford, 1970s
On the radio: Hot Chocolate, Wings

CHILDHOOD summer holidays to me mean one thing: Courtown. My aunt ran a lovely old hotel a stone's throw from the beach even though we typically stayed in a tiny caravan.

In those less-sophisticated times, Courtown seemed impossibly glamorous. It had crazy golf, candyfloss, trampolines, a waltzer and streets strewn with sand blown up from the beach. You could spend hours every evening at the amusement park at the top of the town (and I always did, apart from the night when a skinhead tried to claim my �7 jackpot slot machine winnings . . . sprinting back to the safety of the hotel was particularly difficult with a mountain of coins weighing down my pockets).

My father was the original 'fun daddy' on holidays and it was great to have him 24/7 for those two weeks. My favourite memory of him and our holidays was arriving at the top of the hill in Courtown, after the interminably long journey, and spotting the sea down below. Dad would start singing the 'The sea oh the sea f Long may it flow between England and me" and pump the brake, so the car shunted in time to the song.

Since my parents passed away, I do feel particularly nostalgic about those happy days. The old traditions live on however. I always make a point of singing 'The sea oh the sea' to my own kids (God help them) when we arrive at our holiday destination.

I just hope in years to come their memories of summer holidays will be as warm as mine.

Quentin Fottrell, Spain, 1984
Listening to: 'The Reflex' by Duran Duran
Wearing: Tanktops and grey slip-on shoes

IN 1984, just before my school term ended, my mother announced she was going to take me on holidays to the Costa del Sol. Just me and her. I'd seen the brochures.

So, I put on 'Club Tropicana' and ran my fingers over the pages of blue skies, palm trees, glistening pools, white surf and tanned bodies by the pool.

"The heat!" my mother said, as we got off the plane. "It's like opening the door of an oven, " I replied. (I still say that when I get off planes. ) The hotel looked like a block of flats. When the porter finally showed us to our room in the dead of night, my mother whispered, "We'll be murdered in our beds."

Welcome to paradise!

On the first morning, we emerged with towels and flip-flops, eagerly expecting to blink our way into the sun. It was grey and overcast. There we were, two naive globules on that great jet plane of globalisation, taking our first trip abroad on a cheap low-season ticket, wondering what JWT had done with the sun.

By the time my mother was 30, she had five children, worked fulltime, shopped for groceries and cooked meals for seven people. So, she was busy. This was the first time the two of us had spent time away from the merry-goround of family life. We were now buddies.

We had 14 days to sit by the pool and wander around curiosity shops.

But this new camaraderie brought a false sense of security.

One day, I didn't want to go to Mijas. "I'll Mijas you if you don't get on that bus!" she replied. I hopped to it pretty quick.

The buddy vibe returned hours later and, after that first trip, we went abroad together again.

Another holiday saw us narrowly avoid a hurricane. "It was a toss-up between the peddle boats and bikes, " my mother recalls. "If we'd taken the peddle boat we'd have been blown to kingdom come!"

Ger Siggins, Sligo, 1971
Number One: 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' by Middle of the Road

IT NEVER rained of course. It never did in those long-spent summers . . . surely those fools who believe in global warming must remember them too?

My earliest and best-remembered holiday was when three little Sigginses and my sister's friend piled into the back seat of the Morris Minor and Dad drove us all the way to Sligo. He had heard about this lovely area on the coast where you could pitch your tent and not have too much bother from neighbours.

After the long drive from Dublin, and skirting the magical Ben Bulben, we pulled into the ground near Cliffoney and pitched the small tented village that was to be our home for a fortnight.

The area we camped in behind the dunes was a massive rabbit warren and we had plenty of fun chasing the creatures around. One evening we were hailed by a nice old man who presented my mum with a couple of rabbits, which made a tasty stew. We saw a bit more of the man, who lived in the nearby castle overlooking Mullaghmore, so it was sad to hear of Lord Mountbatten's death eight years later when he was blown up while out fishing with a party of children.

The vast acreage around us was wide open for all sorts of sport and we held a full Olympic programme of events. The most memorable sporting activity of the holiday, though, took place half a world away. It was a rare privilege aged nine to be awoken in the middle of the night to listen to the BBC commentary on the Lions test series against New Zealand and to hear of our heroes Slattery, McBride, Gibson and Lynch as they bearded the All Blacks on their home turf.

Harking back with these photos was a delight and evoked long-buried memories of Palm Grove ice-cream, Perri crisps, Taylor Keith lemonade, Burmah petrol stations and the thrilling noise made by raindrops on canvas . . . so long as you are snug inside. Ohf so maybe it did rain.

Eoin Higgins, Spain, 1981
Listening to: Kool and The Gang singing 'Celebration'

FOUR, seven, 11. That's how I remember how old I was the first time we went on a family holiday to Spain. My older brother Peter was 11, I was seven and the youngest at the time, Conor was four. It was 1981 and my first time to travel outside Ireland yet I was far more excited by the thoughts of flying than I was about what I might find in a foreign land.

I still remember the name of the airline, Aviaco, which sounds like something you might catch from drinking Santa Ponsan water, and they didn't have the greatest safety record either. I was so excited I spent my time in the air green in the face. When we touched down, the doors opened and the heat hit us with a wallop. We were on our holidays.

The first trip to Spain was to Santa Ponsa (it was really posh back then, I swear). We stayed at Caeser's Apartments. It was fine apart from the noise at night; I remember lying awake, my parents pacing around the room as a muffled 'Birdy Song' filtered down from the apartment above, for the 85th time.

The second time in Spain, we stayed in a place called Cala Millor, which was far more family-orientated. I think my parents relaxed more as well as they weren't so sleepdeprived. Their love affair with Espana was shortlived . . . they started seeing other countries . . . but I have maintained my yen for it and lived in Barcelona for two years during the '90s. I haven't returned to Santa Ponsa though . . . yet. Maybe next year.