2 TribuneReview
03/08/08
DAVID KENNY’S ERINDIPITY
Most out-of-this-
world holiday resort
ERINDIPITY is in holiday mode this
week. This is mainly due to last
weekend’s Sindo, which led with a
story castigating our leaders for
going on holidays “as the economic
crisis worsens”.
The article continued on page five
where we beheld a picture of gossip
columnist Barry Egan paddling on a
Spanish beach with Rosanna
Davison. The wind and saltwater had
clearly been at work on those famous
flowing locks, which were displaying
more splits than a can-can dancer on
speed. (Conditioner, Barry, use more
conditioner.)
The accompanying story ran: “You
know Ireland’s economy has officially
hit the buffers when Miss World 2003
is taking budget flights to Spain . . .”
Rosanna is quoted as saying “If you
are walking around Dublin in the cold
and the rain, why not hop on a plane
to Spain?”
This prompted visions of homeless
people settling down for the night
under copies of the Sindo, reading
Rosanna’s advice and then heading to
the nearest travel agent. Perhaps
they could stay in her gaff?
Now you may think that this is a
flimsy premise for a news story, but
here’s the thing: she might be right. If
everyone – regardless of the fact that
they are not the offspring of a multi-
millionaire – buggered off to Spain,
then we’d have less people on the live
register and more jobs to go around.
Hurray! Who needs Alan Greenspan
when we have Rosanna?
The CSO figures back Rosanna up.
They show that more Irish people are
going abroad than ever before (with
the exception of the Famine).
We’re not, though. It’s a Bank
Holiday and we’re stuck here on this
page talking to page three while
everyone – except you, of course – has
gone abroad. Yet we’re still feeling
holidayish. Why? Because tomorrow
we’re going to Bundoran.
The Sunday Tribune reported last
week that local councillor Sean
McEniff intends to sue Meatloaf for
allegedly slandering him during a gig
in the town. The singer claimed he
had safety concerns about the venue
at the Bundoran Live Festival, which
McEniff robustly refuted.
McEniff was in the news last year
when the Lonely Planet guide book
described his beloved Bundoran as
tacky with ‘overpriced B&Bs’. He hit
back saying it was so clean “you could
eat your breakfast on the streets of
Bundoran”. Mind you, with those
B&B prices, you might actually
choose to do just that.
Anyway, to hell with the
begrudgers and those suggesting
foreign climes, Bundoran is Ireland’s
Most Out Of This World Resort, as we
discovered when researching this
week’s beaches/holiday resort-
themed miscellany.
Let’s head to the beach now . . .
Shortest beach
Lonely Leitrim has the country’s
lowest population density at 18 people
per square km. It’s appropriate that a
county with so few people should
have Ireland’s shortest coastline. This
is a scutty 3.21km of Donegal Bay,
14.5km southwest of Bundoran.
The 2006 census shows that
Leitrim is split down the middle on
gender lines with 14,903 chaps to
14,047 ladies. On top of that, 33.1pc
are under 25. With that young 1:1
ratio, Leitrim is seeing plenty of love
action and will soon be bursting with
families bringing their kids to that
tiny beach. If it gets over-crowded,
they could always head to Ireland’s . . .
Longest beach
The longest beach in Ireland can be
found in Kerry and stretches 19.5km
from Maharees to Cloghane village.
The second longest is Benone Strand
(11km) across the border from
Bundoran in Derry.
However, (or highandever as they
say in Derry), Benone has a more
interesting claim to fame – it was
here that Harry Ferguson made the
Daddy’s girl: first powered flight in Ireland in 1909.
Rosanna Davison Derry isn’t the only county with a
and Chris de beach/aviation connection . . .
Burgh. Bottom left:
Bundoran (the St Best beach for unmanned
Tropez of the aircraft
northwest) and,
right, a jarred alien Everybody knows that Alcock and
Brown were the first men to fly
across the Atlantic, landing near
Clifden, Co Galway in 1919.
Just about as many people are
unaware that airmen, Maynard Hill,
Barrett Foster and David Brown also
set a transatlantic record in Galway,
on 11 August, 2003.
On this occasion, however, the
pilots were not in the plane as it broke
the record for Longest Distance
Flight by a Model Aircraft. The men
radio-controlled ‘The Spirit of Butts’
Farm’ 3,030km from Newfoundland
to Mannin beach in just 39 hours.
Co Meath, too, has a reputation for
things flying along beaches . . .
Best strand for horse racing
Laytown strand has witnessed more
riding than a Dollymount dogging
session. It is the only place in Europe
where you’ll find officially-sanctioned
horse racing on a beach. The races
have been going since 1868 and
Charles Stuart Parnell was one of its
first stewards. Even the Aga Khan
has attended (in 1950).
This column of There’s a story about the 1927
trivia revels in its meeting that’s worth telling. As the
utter, utter field in the third race were battling it
uselessness. Any out, a bank of mist rolled in off the sea
unimportant ideas and hid them from view. Spectators
or queries are were alarmed to hear muffled cries,
always welcome shrieks of anger and the crack of a
whip coming from the ball of mist.
dkenny@tribune.ie When the pack re-emerged, two
www.davekenny.com horses were riderless and a jockey
Sunday Tribune
who had been at the back of the field
was now leading it by a distance.
He won the race after a stewards’
inquiry cleared him due to lack of
proof of foul play.
We’re proud to say that that jockey
was our granddad Eddie Kenny. If he
whipped his competitors, we’re sure
he only did it as a last resort.
Did someone say resort . . .
Most out-of-this-world
beach resort
Forget Marbella, Bundoran is so hip
that tourists from all over the world
flock there each year. Some come
from even further afield (cue spooky
music) – like from OUTER SPACE.
In June 1999, the Daily Mirror ran a
story headlined ‘Is This a Baby
Alien?’ with a picture of an alien-
looking creature in a jar.
The report said that a Donegal
butcher had been driving past Finner
Army Camp, just outside of
Bundoran, when he saw a flash of
light. Thinking something had
crashed, he went into a field beside
the base to investigate. There he
found an alien, six inches long, with a
huge head and spindly limbs. It was
lying in a hollow in the ground with
smoke rising off it.
The butcher took his alien to the
gardai who reckoned it was a rabbit.
(A rabbit from outer space? A Space
Hopper??)
Scientists in Belfast, the Mirror
said, examined the strange foetus,
bunged it in a jar and labelled it ‘alien
embryo, origin unknown’. It now
resides in the butcher’s shop.
The butcher said that, since his
discovery, the alien field had become
overrun with rabbits. “There were
always about five or six but now there
are thousands.” (Randy space rabbits
– soon they will take over Bundoran!
We’re DOOOOMED!!!)
If Ireland – and specifically
Bundoran – is good enough for alien
tourists, then we reckon it should be
good enough for Rosanna Davison.
After all, didn’t her dad have a hit
with ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’?
We’ll never know where the alien
came from or why it chose to get
jarred in Bundoran. We’d like to think
it just wanted some old-fashioned
Irish craic and company – it did look
pretty forlorn, after all.
Perish the thought, but could it
have come from a Lonely Planet?