The sunny south-east almost earned its name this month, when the Courtown clouds cleared enough for Shane Hegartyto walk from one indoor venue to another

It is raining on the M50. Lashing on the M11. Spitting on the N11. Drizzling on the R742. All the way to Wexford, we are treated to an impressive range of rain, a diversity of downpours. It belts, pours, showers, chucks it down.

And then, just as we turn off the road before Gorey on to the short road to Courtown, it stops. The road is dry and the sky brighter. As the windscreen wipers are switched off, we marvel at this. The sunny south-east lives up to its name. And Courtown, as locals tell you, really does have its own microclimate. It can be miserable five miles away, but glorious in Courtown. Suddenly, things don't look too bad at all.

At which moment it starts to rain. And it doesn't stop for hours.

Courtown is "only an hour from Dublin", as more than a couple of people tell me, not always as a positive. A splash of a village tumbling down a hill towards the Irish Sea, it still has all the trappings of a coastal resort. Its heartbeat remains the beep-and-ching of amusement arcades. It has the p

eeling harbour-front hotels and chip shops and a cute kiosk, where determined families buy their ice creams, and try to devour them before the rain splashes them away.

Along the strand, hardy children dash in and out of the waves, while their mothers huddle patiently on the rocks. Courtown has a Blue Flag, but the biggest worry is just how long it will have a beach on which to plant it.

Erosion has done great damage in recent years, so that the strip of sand closest to the town has been all but crowded out and lifeguards and tourists have moved towards the north end, where the dunes continue to put up a fight.

Behind the harbourfront, development continues. Hoardings run along the spot where a nightclub has been demolished to make way for apartments and retail units. A €6 million marina is also planned, but for now yachts are spitting out from the small canal harbour, between the pier walls, to prepare for a race. Nine surfers bob in the sea, waiting for a wave, so that they can hop on it and wobble along until the surf flattens.

Meanwhile, fishermen lob their lines, looking for mackerel, flounder or flatfish, the odd dogfish, but occasionally looking a little more likely to catch a surfer.

It is raining, but we are determined to make the best of it. Courtown's holiday-makers have a few options when the weather turns bad. One of them is to get out of Courtown.

Glendalough, Powerscourt and Avoca are within reach, as are the shops in Gorey, a few miles up the road. And there's even Dublin, of course, for those who haven't just come from there. "We get a lot of British off the ferries," says Daphne O'Donoghue, marketing and operations manager of Woodside self-catering houses. "We have Dutch here at the moment, and we get a lot of Americans who might include it as part of their two weeks in Ireland. And we get a few Italians." Italians at an Irish seaside resort? "Again, they'll use it as a base. It's within easy access of a lot of places."

Occaisionally, O'Donoghue's guests complain to her about the weather. "There's not much I can do about it, I'm afraid." Besides, "they know that it's a bit unpredictable in Ireland, but at least we're the sunniest part of it. More hours than anywhere else. But I would say that it's only the parents who get a bit bored. The kids love it."

Other rainy-day options include going for a swim - indoors, of course - at the still relatively new leisure centre. Or an afternoon at Pirate's Cove, where the smell of popcorn drifts over "Ireland's first adventure golf course", or a chance to get the adrenalin wet at the whirling thrill rides next to it.

With a two-year-old, Oisín, to entertain, we keep it simple. At the little outdoor carnival area behind Flanagan's Wharf amusement arcade at the harbour, it's only the parents who stand around peering at the clouds. The operators simply wipe the rain off the seats for the kids who couldn't care less if they have to take their chair rides in an ice storm.

Inside, the arcade is filled with families, waddling under the weight of the 20-cent pieces in their pockets, for feeding the games and mini-rides. And on the other side of the wall, visible through the change booth, is the adults' area, where women pump the machines mindlessly.

On our "family" side, we spy a "coin pusher" machine and can't resist. We put in 20 cent and win nothing. We lift Oisín up so that he can put a coin in the slot. He wins 40 cent, and we leave safe in the knowledge that we have set our son on the path towards compulsive gambling.

It stops raining for a while, long enough for us to walk to a local restaurant where the waiter is happy with the climate. "It keeps us busy anyway," he says, as he leads us to our table. "Last year it was all outdoor eating and barbecues."

The next morning is bright, but blustery. At Courtown's beach, Declan Timmons, from Athlone, is taking a paddle. "Too rough for a swim," he says.

His family holidayed here over the course of a century, but he's only on his way through from Waterford "for old times' sake. I used to come here when I was younger, but it's totally changed. It's a bit rougher now. In the old days it was a family resort." For Caroline Menton, from Ballyfermot in Dublin, it still is a family resort. She is here with her eight-year-old son Aaron, her parents, sister and nephew. "We always go to Tramore, but we decided to see another place. It's grand and clean, and even with the rain the kids are still kept active. And everyone seems friendly."

We take a drive south, cutting through an oddly striking triumvirate of caravan park, housing estate and graveyard. The rest of Courtown stretches a couple of miles towards Pollshone, and comprises new housing developments and crescents of bland holiday homes that mushroomed during the tax incentive schemes of the early 1990s.

There are occasional options of a detour to another beach: Donaghmore; Roney Point; the dunes of Old Bawn, from where an impressive wind farm runs across the adjacent fields. The coast is dotted with second home hideaways, peeking from cliff edges or sequestered down sandy paths. There is a sense of the isolation it can offer, of being something other than an hour from Dublin. And on the way back in to Courtown, with the sun in the sky, the road lifts enough to offer a tantalising view of a glistening sea, and a sense of what it is that not only brings people to the town, but of what keeps them coming here.

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