Theo Dorgan talks about his holiday memories...
What's your earliest holiday memory?The train to Youghal. We used to have a Sunday excursion on the train – proper trains, with corridors and compartments. It was fantastic. We would have picnics and run wild with excitement. At seven or eight we never noticed how cold the sea was.
What was your worst holiday?The worst, even though we enjoyed it in a weird way, was when Paula, my partner, and I went to Majorca once. The storms were so bad that the national guard was called to clean up after the floods, and yachts were blown up on to the highway. We'd left our hotel and were staying in a villa the owners loaned us, but had all of our power knocked out. We ate and played cards by candlelight or stayed in bed – it was too rough to venture out. There we were, struggling through a thunderstorm for food and candles when all we'd wanted was a bit of sun.
What was your best holiday?My best holiday, as such, was a fortnight sailing the Ionian with Paula, making into Ithaca under sail on my 50th. My most memorable trip so far was two years ago, sailing from Chile to South Africa via Cape Horn and the Falklands/Malvinas. We put into Tristan de Cunha, which I only ever knew as an exotic stamp in my childhood collection. It was like Kerry in the 1950s, in the middle of the south Atlantic. Thirty-five days at sea, the south Atlantic in winter. My great-grandmother died in childbirth at Cape Horn, so there was the old Irish thing of visiting the dead.
If budget or work were not a restriction, what would be your dream holiday?I would really like a circumnavigation, a two-year trip around the world under sail. It would also be nice to see the mountains of northwest China on horseback for a month or two.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?Paula – she is the best company in the world.
What's your favourite place in Ireland?A stretch of road between Castletown Bere and Allihies, in Co Cork. The Greek idea of a sacred place, a temenos. Something in that stretch of country makes me feel absolutely at home.
Your recommended holiday reading?I tend to bring the poetry of a place. For Greece, for instance, Cavafy and Seferis. I might listen to fado for a fortnight before a trip to Lisbon. The world is full of travel guides, but the soul of a place is in its poetry and songs. It gives you an instinctive feel for a place that even the best guidebooks don't get.
Where will you go to next?I'm going back to Athens soon to give a reading. I can't stay away from Greece. For my next sailing trip? Maybe Tokyo to San Francisco – or I have a notion that it would be interesting to sail the coast of China.
Theo Dorgan can be seen on TG4's arts programme Imeallon Wednesdays at 11.05pm. His collection of poetry Greekand his book Time on the Oceanwill be published next year
In conversation with GENEVIEVE CARBERY