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Dublin: 13 °C Sunday 6 October, 2024
First daughters

How the Obama girls can get a REAL Irish holiday experience

And there’ll be no fighting in that backseat now or else Michelle is just going to turn this car right around and go home.

WHILE BARACK IS at hard at work up in Lough Erne at the G8 summit, his family will be having a short holiday down South.

Wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha will be enjoying a flying visit around Dublin and Wicklow – taking in a stay in the Shelbourne Hotel, a trip to see the Book of Kells, a private show of Riverdance and a jaunt up to Glendalough.

T’was far from a private show of Riverdance we were reared. Here are the REAL childhood Irish experiences the girls should be getting…

Caravan in Wexford

First of all, the Shelbourne is far too swanky. The girls should be going down to the caravan in Wexford, to the beach at Tramore or the prom at Salthill.

Image: via YouTube/FatherTedChannel

At a push, they should be staying with their cousins in Moneygall for the summer.

The beach

The nearby strand was an integral part of childhood holidays. You’d happily spend all day on the beach with a bucket and spade, or simply digging a very big hole for no discernible reason.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/Stepol

Sasha and Malia’s trip doesn’t include any beaches – so they’re going to miss out on the Irish childhood rites of passage like getting sandy deposits everywhere, the stink of seaweed and peeing in the sea.

The amusements

The best part of any childhood holiday in Ireland was being given five pounds at the start of the holiday to spend for the week. You had to budget VERY carefully. The amusements jeopardised all that.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/The Token Company

Another firm favourite and drain on the pocket money was the fairground. Those precious pounds disappeared in a flurry of excitement… And all you were left with at the end was an oversized teddy and a lingering sensation of nausea from the Waltzers.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/CraigFinlay

The cousins

It was the few weeks a year you spent almost entirely with your feckin’ cousins. And every year, you’d remember why you only saw them a fortnight a year.

Image: via The Daily Meme

It was almost the most annoying cousins you had to share the mobile home with. Cousins – useful in one sense in that they proved there were people out there more annoying than your siblings.

Fishing for pinkeens

Nothing was better on idyllic childhood summer days than getting out the jam jars and fishing for pinkeens.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/WooleyDuck

Somehow we can’t really imagine Sasha or Malia finding pinkeens as thrilling as we did.

The delicious food

Childhood holidays in Ireland involved a very strict diet of fish and chips, rounded off with a 99 cone.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/Dave on Flickr

Do you think the Shelbourne could possibly russle up some battered cod for the Obama girls?

The dog in the boot

One person always came on the family holiday – the dog. Sasha and Malia actually have a dog back in the White House, a Portuguese water dog called Bo.

Image: via The White House

We don’t think Michelle will be sticking Bo in the boot of The Beast, though.

The water park

If you were lucky, you might have got to go to a water park – and yet we don’t see Trabolgan or Mosney on that itinerary for the first daughters.

Image: via Flickr Creative Commons/Scott Ableman

Maybe they forgot to pack their arm bands.

Read: First Daughters: 11 things to know about Malia and Sasha Obama>

Read: Open thread: What are your best childhood holiday memories?>