‘That’s when the shark fins appeared’: horrifying holidays

In early 1969 Marcus Graham's parents booked a week in Belfast and a week in Dublin. At the Elsinore Hotel the car park was empty and only the elderly owners remained; a few days after they returned home the BBC announced a bomb had destroyed The Elsinore Hotel — the purported meeting headquarters of the IRA — prompting his father to rise with a loud shout of 'Good God!'.

Marcus Graham later wrote that he guessed they survived because they were a family of Catholic red heads even though they were English. Fiona Irwin recalls a honeymoon in 2008 that felt like a silent Laurel and Hardy sketch after her new husband got so drunk at the wedding they could not do the first dance.

Their car broke down on the way to the airport, they hired another car, and were told at the resort their accommodation was two miles out with no transport because of a religious feast day.

United Kingdom; Ireland, Belfast; Dublin

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