Mick Lally, actor.
What's your earliest holiday memory?
Visiting my grandfather Tom McGing, who lived on the shore of Lough Mask. I was three or four. He was a farmer. We'd go at different times of the year. My memory is of being there on my own. I used to visit there fairly often, and sometimes I'd help with the work on the farm. His wife died when she was quite young, and, by degrees, all his family went to America, apart from my mother. When he was in his late 50s he sold his land and went to America himself.
What was your worst holiday?
I don't remember having any bad holiday moments, seeing as I take so few. I've never travelled abroad on a holiday apart from going to Denmark with Peige, my wife, and the family a number of years ago, and in 1988 I went to Australia with Druid [theatre company].
Your best holiday?
When I was in Sydney in 1988 with Druid, doing The Playboy of the Western World. That was a real eye-opener. I read up about the whole Aboriginal story and how they were so savagely treated. It was the bicentenary year of the white settlement. There were big celebrations, and on January 26th, Australia Day, there was a re-creation of the 12 tall ships sailing into Sydney Harbour. Whites came from all over Australia to witness this. On the same day the Aboriginal people were having a march of mourning, and I went on that with them, to lend the whimper of an Irish shout to theirs. They marched to a park and had a kind of Aboriginal fleadh ceoil. It was one of the most wonderful days I ever spent in my life.
If budget or work were not a restriction, what would be your dream holiday?
I've often thought about going back to Australia. I would like to check out Brisbane and Queensland.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?
My wife, Peige - if she'd come, because she's nervous of flying.
Your favourite place in Ireland?
Tourmakeady, where I come from. It's a lovely place. My father and mother are still there and my sister is married there, on the farm I was reared on. It's on the shores of Lough Mask, in south Co Mayo. I left to go to boarding school in 1960. I'd go back regularly to take it easy. It's a wild area in the Party Mountains. The irony is there are far less houses now then when I was growing up. There's a lot of emigration, but a lot of people came back as well in recent times.
What holiday reading would you recommend?
I'd bring any book by John McGahern. His incredible gift of observation is staggering. I think That They May Face the Rising Sun, his final novel, is wonderful.
In conversation with Catherine Foley