Name: Dr Declan Mulvaney
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Occupation: General practitioner, Illawarra Shoalhaven Medicare Local board member.
Age: 47 years
Suburb: Milton, NSW
Holiday location: Killough, County Down, Northern Ireland.
I grew up in Newry which was then a small town near the border with the Republic of Ireland.
My early memories of holidays were traveling to the small coastal village where my father had lived as a boy and we had several aunts and uncles still living in the area.
Now I look at the journey as just a brief hop in the car but back then it was one of the longest journeys we would undertake as a family.
It takes only 45 minutes but travels across a beautiful landscape of farming areas skirting the famous Mourne Moutains lying to the east.
The long street of Killough with its square and sedate church set on the edge of the estuary and leafy trees lining the broad pavements is very much etched in my mind.
We stayed in a little cottage previously owned by my Great Aunt Mary and next door to my grandparents house which was then owned by my Aunt Pauline and her husband Paddy who worked as lighthouse keeper.
The house had a really long garden leading to a back lane and had apple trees growing in it.
It looked across the water to a little hamlet known as Coney Island which was the subject in more recent years of a song by Van Morrison.
As a young boy we spent the holidays on the beach at Top Shore or fishing with my father up towards the Coastguard station.
The evenings were spent in another family house.
My Aunt Maureen ran a home bakery and they also ran the sweet and ice cream shop. I remember her making endless batches of pancakes in the evening.
She was repeatedly interrupted by the tinkle of the bell on the shop door.
Children came in for ice creams and little bags of confectionery weighed out by the ounce.
It was the highlight of my week to be allowed to weigh out the lollies and wrap up the bag like my Uncle Paddy did.
We went for long walks with my parents and collected field mushrooms.
In later years I would continue to visit for a holiday as a teenager without the rest of the family and spend three weeks with my cousins.
We would cycle for hours each day and managed to scavenge fresh prawns from the fishermen at Ardglass about once a week.
They just gave them away as long as you brought your own bag. We would cycle home furiously and feast on the freshest prawns you could wish for unless you caught them yourself.
Now I live in a small coastal town in NSW and I feel it has something of the ambience of my childhood holidays with simple natural pleasure for young families and a sense of secure freedom to explore.