by Paula Halpin
What I remember most about being a child in the seaside village of Skerries near Dublin
is racing across white sand so hot it stung my feet and then plunging into waves so cold
they turned my lips blue in minutes.
Hot beach. Freezing water. The paradox of the Irish Sea in mid-summer.
The air would smell of shellfish and the black-green seaweed that clung to the wet sand.
Shivering girls and boys would dash from the water to be embraced in striped towels by
grandmothers whose bodies stayed warm because they never swam. At most, they
would remove their shoes and stockings and paddle along the water’s edge,
occasionally darting away from the onrushing waves which threatened to soak their
summer dresses.
The grandmothers would rub us dry and kiss us on the cheek for good measure and
usher us under sun umbrellas ranged along the wind-blown grasses at the top of the
beach. Mothers would inspect our freckled sweet-smelling skin for sunburn and coat our
necks and shoulders with the cream they would normally use on babies’ bottoms to
protect against nappy rash.
When the sun was at its highest, we would gather under the make-shift awning set up
by the men and have ham sandwiches, and potato crisps, and fig rolls, washed down by
milky black tea.
After lunch, we would nap for an hour — without complaint. Refreshed, we would take
our afternoon dip, and then explore the tidal pools at the base of the rocks. Finds might
include periwinkles or baby mussels or, on an especially good day, bright pink and
lavender molluscs. All things to marvel at and poke with a stick.
In the early evenings, we would pack up the yellow and blue buckets and spades and
return to our rented cottages on Main Street. Cottage front doors were painted in
primary colours. The most prized had thatched roofs. We would change into clean
clothes and straggle behind a convoy of parents and grandparents and cousins and
aunts and uncles as they headed out for dinner at the Stoop Your Head Pub. Along the
way, we might pause to listen to the barking of the harbour seals.
Sea air-ravenous, we would devour baskets of chips at Stoops with bowls of Dublin Bay
Prawns brought fresh that day from the fishing boats bobbing in the harbour.
Dinner would be followed by tubs of whipped ice cream, purchased at the stand on the
pier run by the Parisi family. The evening would end with pongo (a bingo forerunner) in
the church hall. All were welcome, even the atheists.
Yawning and loose-limbed, we would saunter home. The moon would be shining shafts
of light on the calm and watchful sea. We would hear in the distance the band warming
up for the nightly dance at the Red Island holiday camp out on the headland.
We would follow these rituals every day for the month of July, arriving back in Dublin in
August, our bodies a healthy golden brown, our hair bleached and crackling dry from
the sun and the sea breeze. It would take weeks to get the last grains of sand out of
shoes and suitcases. In the winter, we would lie in our city beds and dream of waking
again to the high-pitched cry of the gulls and the sound of the waves rolling in and
rolling out.
It has been more than 60 years since my last time in Skerries. I hear from family that
kids are still building sandcastles and collecting shells, encased these days in what look
like wetsuits and wearing hats and sunblock. For their part, grandmothers are now
wearing stylish one-piece bathing suits and swimming far out into the surf.
Stoop Your Head is still serving up chips doused in malt vinegar, but prawns are seldom
on the menu these days because of scarcity and high prices. Like many fish species in
European waters, they are on track to have disappeared by 2100 due to climate
change, overfishing and mercury pollution. By that time, the Dublin coastline could be
under water because of rising sea levels and storm surges. Skerries might disappear all
together. Perish the thought.
In my 70s now, I am living far from the Irish Sea. It is high summer. I’m watching my 10-
year-old granddaughter run to the end of the dock, leap in the air, her skinny legs akimbo,
shrieking with joy as she splashes down into the still-icy Gatineau River.
She is aware of the deadly forest fires raging across Canada. She knows about the
choking smoke that blanketed her village in the spring. She has heard about rivers in past
years breaking their banks and flooding homes not that far from where she lives. But she
is not worrying about all that now because she is a child and lives in the present.
And I am not sad at that moment either. I’ve taken a break from my eco-anxiety and
allowed myself to be transported back to the beach of my childhood. I am floating on my
back in the pristine sea alongside my siblings and cousins. We are describing for each
other the animal shapes we see in the clouds that scud across the pure blue sky. We are
deciding which flavour of ice cream we will dive into after dinner tonight.
Wandering Wakefield 