How sheep, seaweed and the shore in Ireland helped me bond with my father

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But lockdown made us all nostalgic, and I began to see a portrait of my father as a little boy in the back of the car, going to Achill Island one summer with his parents, while other summers saw him in his mother’s native Sligo with his cousins. JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World, came to mind, at which point Dad started telling me about his own involvement in theatre in his twenties, how he managed to get Brian Friel – another renowned Irish playwright – to send him an early draft of something he was working on for a magazine. The town was busy with parents and children caught unawares by Ireland’s sudden last-minute shift into summer – “quick, get the summer stuff out” – so we decided to pay a visit to something else that this town is known for: its seaweed baths. After the hour was up, my dad gave his verdict: “That was quirky alright, definitely not one for pampered princesses.” open image in gallery Ewe and me: Aisling with the animals that appeared throughout her trip When we arrived in Sligo that evening, we met a cousin for a drink at Thomas Connolly’s, a place for a proper knees-up.