Joan Bergin, Emmy-winning costume designer, talks about her holidays
What's your earliest holiday memory?Being in Clonakilty, in west Cork, with my parents, lying on top of flax coming back from the fields, trying to grip onto the slimy weed. As a child I thought of myself as a townie, and you'd go down to gaze at your cousins. My mother was from west Cork, and she met my father at a céilí in Cork city. We were always brought back to where they'd met each other.
What was your worst holiday?A package holiday in Fuengerola, in Spain, where you took a coloured ticket for how much you were allowed to eat. It was 25 years ago. The weather was boiling hot, so, luckily, we didn't want to eat much. The hotel was in the business part of town, so you'd walk out self-consciously in your shorts if you were going out.
Your best holiday?Africa with all my film mates and my brother, Jimmy, who is a great professional musician. He had his steel guitar, so nobody would let us pay for a drink. We were in Namibia, up the Serengeti towards Botswana for a month. It was January three years ago. I felt like a member of the Raj when we went hippopotamus hunting. But we had to come back at speed because the animals get bored at people coming to look at them, and we were in danger of being attacked. The gang used to stay in the campsite and I used to stay in the lodge, so it subsequently became known as the Driving Miss Daisy tour. Nothing beats working on a movie for five months and then you wake up in totally different surroundings. The worlds collide. They work best, those holidays.
If budget or work were not a restriction, what would be your dream holiday?I think a palace in India with all the attendant perks. I have never been there, only for stop-offs in Calcutta on my way to Australia. I always think of it as visually joyous but with quite a sad history.
If you had your pick, who would you bring on holiday with you?Kevin O'Connor, my partner.
Your favourite place in Ireland?Connemara, because I feel my soul needs to walk on the beach on Glassilaun, near Tullycross, at least once a year.
What holiday reading would you recommend?One of the best reads I've ever had was Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings. It's the most fascinating book.
Where to next?I'm tempted to go back to Africa, because it was so extraordinary. Africa constantly grabs your senses. It constantly excites you. If your palate is in danger of getting jaded, just go to Africa to seea dung beetle shoving a ball of dung along and being bombarded by 1,000 pin-headed butterflies, or to look into a giant cactus, called an envelope, and as you look and breath on it, the leaves fold over. It has all the wonders of the world.