Gloria's top tips for a great trip
Where does Belfast local Gloria Hunniford rate for her holidays? Find out in this interview with the Telegraph.
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Follow the locals...
Spend a few minutes with Gloria Hunniford and you realise how genuine is the warmth and sincerity that she exudes on television and radio. And while much of her charm is her own, some of it is that relaxed bonhomie that you’ll find everywhere in Ireland.Now that she lives most of the time in England, Gloria herself notices that enchanting quality in people whenever she goes back to her homeland.
“I forget sometimes just how friendly and chatty and funny everyone is,” she says. “You meet such characters along the way, which you never seem to find in the same way in any other country. You get off the plane and it’s lashing with rain and the taxi driver will say, ‘Ah, it’s only a lick, it’ll do you good’. And straight away, you feel better.”
Gloria’s holiday home
Gloria’s looking forward to a two-week holiday with her husband, Stephen, at the apartment they own at Dalkey, a village south of Dublin.
She grew up in Portadown, in Northern Ireland, and worked as a broadcaster in Belfast for many years. Now she finds Dalkey — which handily boasts a score of restaurants — the perfect spot for a holiday home, 20 minutes from the excitement of Dublin yet also near to the beautiful Wicklow Hills and the vast sandy beach at Brittas Bay.
“It is so true that when you’re in Ireland you can just go where Ireland takes you,” she says. “One morning you decide to drift into the city, and then the weather’s good so you say, ‘Let’s just go left instead of right’, and we’ll end up in the Wicklow Hills, which are beautiful — so we can be in the mountains or beside the beach inside 40 minutes.”
Fabulous Food Trails in Dublin
Gloria thought she knew the city well so was startled when she recently went on a Fabulous Food Trail tour of the city. “None of these places I had been to before — you go to a marvellous cheese shop, wine bars, Victorian pubs and the wonderful Cake Café. To reach it you walk through this upmarket stationery shop, all beautiful invitations and paper.
“What I was so enamoured by is that the café is environmentally friendly: the staff all ride bicycles into work, the china is bought in second-hand shops and the toilets are flushed with rainwater piped from outside”
A Butcher’s Dozen (or Two)
The food trail also called in at a butcher’s shop. “I asked the butcher who the beautiful girl
was in the banner he had hanging across his shop — a model. He said, ‘She’s one of my 23 children’. Eleven to the same wife! It turned out she was Miss Ireland a couple of years ago and I asked if he had been to the final. ‘Yes, it was in Poland — just a few of the family went, only 42 of us!’”Gloria later took part in a course at Ballyknocken Cookery School, in County Wicklow. “It’s run by a very impressive woman, Catherine Fulvio, who’s also a food writer and presenter, and you can stay for bed and breakfast and also do a course, anything from traditional Irish cooking to Italian — we learnt to make spaghetti and bread, and pesto sauce.”
A country girl at heart
When Gloria has had her fill of Dublin’s excitement, she loves to head out into the countryside. “The country is so compact for driving around. When I was growing up, the roads in the south of Ireland were just atrocious, but now, with the European input, the road system is great.” She still has a great fondness for many parts of Northern Ireland — the spectacular North Antrim coast that leads up to the Giants Causeway, as well as the beautiful north-west.
“We used to go for a lot of holidays in Fermanagh, over at Enniskillen. There you have six miles of lake. There’s a lovely old expression there which says it’s 35ft deep — two of water and the rest of fish. It’s great for fishing.”
Belfast Rocks
While much of the country has changed since she lived there permanently, it is her former home of Belfast that most impresses Gloria. “They’ve completely rebuilt it and it’s very vibrant. I went on a music tour. It takes you all around the city and reminds you how many famous people have come from Belfast — Van Morrison, Ruby Murray and so many other musicians.”
The tour culminated in a visit to the Belfast Music Exhibition at the Oh Yeah music centre, which provides studio and performance space as well as offices, for young bands. An exhibition packed with memorabilia takes visitors through the city’s rich musical heritage.
Northern lights in the art world
“I loved it because the south has always been better at heralding its talented musicians, artists and writers, but now Northern Ireland is beginning to catch up a bit,” says Gloria. “There are many galleries, too, with some superb artists — we went on a tour of around 14 galleries, starting with Queens University, where they change the exhibitions all the time.
“We also dropped in on fantastically talented young artists who are based at Queen Street Studios. I met Emma Connolly, who is a very up-and coming young painter.” And the food in Belfast is also wonderful,” she reveals. “We ate at the Merchant hotel, which is so magnificent inside — world class.” Gloria is certainly excited about her forthcoming holiday. “Ireland is so accessible, with so many ways to get there. We’re going to drive over this time, so we can take our little dog with us.”
Article first published in the Telegraph, Sat 22nd Sep 2009.
