What is your favorite childhood memory ?

I’m not old but still have great childhood memories.

1. me, my mother and my sister often visiting my aunt. My older cousin was my sisters age, my younger cousin my age. We’d get takeaway from the Chinese and after play call of duty black ops 2 zombies on town map and play rounds into the night while my mother and aunt would chat in the kitchen.
2. playing Halo with primary school friends
3. cycling 40 km + - per day exploring the countryside with my friend in the summer nearly everyday, mam giving out that I’m staying out too late. In that way, living in the countryside with that freedom was great.

Playing tip the pole 1, 2, 3.

Yeah it's a game elderly bachelors used to play with the local kids back in the day (keeping it a secret from their parents was parents was part of the fun). He'd gather them round him in a circle and get them to...

No seriously when we were on holidays with our aunt in Dublin we'd play a hide and seek variant with the neighbouring kids called 'Tip the can', I presume 'pole' is an alternative name....

Sorry I meant my previous post was kinda negative.

I remember bag of Taytos was massive and was 2 and half p and you got a bag of MrPerri for 2p. Our local shop and school sweet shop had everything you could wish for for less than 5p .

Used to bring glass bottles back to the local shop and get a patsy pop, an orange split, or a bundle of cola bottles or bon bons or mixed boiled sweets for the change.

We played down the road with all my neighbours , built dens, had gangs which changed over regularly, and chased each other around till nightfall playing tig or rover, or with skipping ropes . People were tied up when we played cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians .

We had go-cars made from apple crates and pramwheels and bits of rope as well. The fun and danger and the speed !

Red lemonade , swimming in the river outside the town I grew up in where my mam brought me until I learned to swim and then I went swimming with my friends there . We used to cycle there and back or get a 'bar ' from some of the lads we knew .

Went to the local beach about 30 miles away a lot at the weekends with my parents and brothers and sisters...all packed in the one little car ,with a basket of ham and chicken sandwiches and diluted miwadi.

Dad would have the rug by the car for him and Mam listening to whatever GAA match was on , some guy ranting as gaeilge and we'd be on the beach jumping in the waves or burying each other in the sand . At the rockpools with a little fishing net between us trying to catch something which we were made throw back or poking jellyfish in awe .

99s or chips on the way home . Nothing on that beach except one shop and a chipper van and it was bliss .

Always got a little sunburnt and we'd end up covered with calamine lotion . No such thing as sun protection those days except Mam chasing us with tshirts that we always took off.

Went to my cousins further up the country during the summer . Stayed with my granny and had so many cousins around I loved it there . My siblings didn't have the same connections there, so it was all mine for a change and I loved that !

We used to cycle or walk to go swimming in an outdoor pool , no adults , and to the lake where we swam and fished for briceens , and in later years , boys;)

Most of the lads I grew up with playing in the hay fields making bale igloos , going swimming or later at discos in the local rowing or tennis club ,were all good friends and we still are. Met my oh a few years after this as he hung out in a different but largely the same gang ,iykwim ! He never got to see me in my tomboy glory :)

We were like others here , left go out all day long but I do remember the odd wet summer when all you could do was have friends over or be on the landline and your dad going mad over the bill .

I remember the news ,Richie Ruin , Dad worrying over oil, the immersion , and electricity bills when I was older and my older siblings had started to go to uni . But not in the glorious summer days up to about 15 .

My parents never seemed to be worried about us once they knew roughly who we were with and when we got back .

We never went on a foreign holiday. Two weeks of bliss in the West every year spent mainly swimming in the sea or at the Merrys on an evening .

Closest I got was school trip to UK in leaving cert . Not that we couldn't afford to go , it just wasn't done, except the Gaeltacht ,which was foreign enough , lol .

Loved it , went a few times and it was way more than learning Irish !

I have tried to replicate as much as possible the fun and freedom that we had without being reported by neighbour for being negligent . I think mine have had a good happy childhood albeit different from what myself and my oh had .

They laugh at us when we tell them about our childhood and we get " oh I had to go to school after I gathered the turf and was in rags with bare feet ," or " I crossed the hills in the snow to go to school " which is all bs but they love it .

Thing is we were lucky because I know others weren't , and heard later bad stuff that we were sheltered from.

My parents are long gone but they were the best and I am grateful , and Jake sure my kids know all about them . ❤

Any day my pr1ck of a brother had some misfortune. It always brought a smile to my face.

It’s unique enough to be worth sharing.

Waking up on Christmas morning to find Santy brought exactly what I asked for.