Byline: Interview by Kate Butler

From when I was born in 1976 until 1996, I stayed with my family for two weeks every summer at Cronin's Chalet in Dun Geagan, Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry.

In the early 1970s, a guy called Neil O'Shea from Ballinskelligs moved to Athlone, in Co Roscommon, where I'm from, and made friends with my father.

So Ballinskelligs became a good place to go for the family holidays; my dad got to go with his mates and we became good friends with their children.

We'd set off every year on the first Saturday of August. It seemed as though everyone in the country went on holidays on that day. We'd stop off for food in Limerick and we'd see the same families every year, all going to different places.

There was a place that my parents called the Cahirciveen Curtain. It was the last main town before the wilds of Kerry, and once we went past that town, the rules changed.

My two younger brothers and I had a bit more freedom; our whereabouts weren't as regulated as usual. Basically, my parents were happy to go to the pub and let us run wild.

The house we stayed in had an Alpine look to it, even though it was in Kerry. It was in a tiny village, opposite...