The mobile generation

IT’S a summer’s weekend in Ireland.

The sun puts on a rave performance and as you drive home from the beach, hair damp and cheeks glowing, listening to delirious children boast about what height waves they conquered, you can’t help but think about booking into a mobile home – again.

Even those living at the centre of this island are little more than a couple of hours from the nearest beach or lakeside and so the mobile home has long played a part in our collective memory of summertime.

During the property obsession of the late 1990s and 2000s, the humble mobile home wasn’t entirely disregarded and in many parts, particularly the south-east, the exact location of your mobile home became yet another indicator of your societal ranking.

People paid up to €100,000 for a glorified caravan that they used sporadically (one caravan owner tells of a man who only used his for changing and making a cup of coffee after the beach and never stayed the night) while five-year waiting lists to get on site were commonplace – so people bought into contracts with absurd leases including clauses saying you had to replace your home every 10 years.

Fast forward nearly three years and waiting lists are rare. There are anecdotal stories of people having difficulty paying their annual lease but park operators in Cork says their tenants are managing to dig up the €1,500-€2,000 annual lease.

Some are now notably concerned with “getting value” from their payout with many spending their annual leave and most dry weekends at the beach rather than just using it sporadically.

In mountainous Glengarriff on the Cork/Kerry border, David Dowling runs a caravan park. His family has been in the business since 1971 taking in long-term mobile homers and touring caravans and tents. He says that waiting lists for mobile home pitches are extremely rare and that the new mobile home market is dead.

“There is nobody buying a new caravan or mobile home. That’s gone completely. They are now realising that you pay up to €75,000 for a new home versus €10,000-€12,000 for a good-quality second-hand one.

“There’s still a lot of people coming in making enquiries about sites; promising the sun, moon and stars but it never leads anywhere. It’s just not so easy to get bank loans.”

Sexton’s Caravan and Camping Park is on the back Clonakilty road from Timoleague. The Sexton family has been running the park for 43 years and have 40 long-term pitches for use by families between March and September. A sign outside the premises says ‘mobile homes for sale’.

Elaine Sexton says they haven’t any problems with people not paying their annual fee for their site but she says that the phone isn’t exactly hopping either with people looking for pitches.

“What I am noticing however is a lot more people camping in tents over the weekend. The June Bank Holiday weekend, for instance, we were completely booked out. We’re seeing groups of families coming down together as it’s a cheap weekend break. For instance, we had three groups of friends, living in Mullingar, Waterford and the North, all here in Timoleague last weekend,” she said.

However, while there might be a surge in interest in camping – a recent Halford’s survey showing that 92% of Irish people now think that camping is an ideal way to enjoy the outdoors – the numbers of foreigners camping in Ireland is dropping off, according to all the park owners.

“We have always banked on them for touring caravans and tenting but there are definitely less coming,” said Elaine.

And so with unemployment showing little sign of dipping soon and the banks’ newfound anathema to lending, are those yearning for beachlife now settling for the more modest mobile home?

“Yes, a mobile home is a lot cheaper way of having a base in West Cork and there will always be people who think that,” according to Denis Mawe of Garrettstown House.

They have up to 100 mobile homes at their 20-acre park centred around the 18th century house. The park includes a kids’ playground, tennis courts and a crazy-golf course.

Denis says they still have a waiting list but he sees signs of tightening belts in that people “are now also using the mobile homes for the annual family holiday too” rather than jetting abroad. They haven’t noticed any real increase in the numbers of families having to sell up. “People want value out of them,” he says.

Down the road at Manning’s Caravan Park at Garrylucas, their beach-front location means that they will always be in demand.

“We have a steady flow of customers who came down with their parents as children and want their children to have the same experience.

“We’ve already had a good few enquiries for sites this year,” said an upbeat Seán Sellors.

In Tramore, Co Waterford, Tommy Gammell describes business as “steady” but “not as busy as before”. He runs Atlantic View Caravan Park in Tramore. He doesn’t have vacant sites at present and says he has 15-20 people looking for a pitch.

“We’d have a lot of the next generation wanting to come back here with their own kids,” he says.

“In general, if the sun is shining there is always great interest but it’s when somebody makes an enquiry in the rain that you know they have a real interest”.

John and Jackie O’Connor, owners of O’Connor’s Caravan Park, in Glenbeigh, are hoping for a return to traditional caravan and camping this year.

“With the recession, it seems people will spend more of their holiday time in Ireland and it looks as those with mobile homes in holiday areas will definitely be making more use of them,” said John.

However, the Ring of Kerry site does not have a waiting list, at present, and inquiries have dropped since the recession began, according to Jackie.

Like many another park, it began by John’s parents allowing a few tents to be pitched on a patch of spare ground outside the family home in 1960. His late father, also John, and his mother, Sheila, were small farmers.

“It started with a few tents and then a few caravans. Then they’d be left into a bigger field after the hay was saved. They’d even pitch tents between cocks of hay. Things were very basic back then,” John recalled.

But it wasn’t until around 1990 that the O’Connors began to seriously develop the tree-shaded park by the banks of the River Behy.

The park now has 200 pitches and is exclusively occupied by people who own their mobile homes which are not purchased from the O’Connors. The annual rental fee for a pitch is €1,900. “We’re open from March to the end of October and the place is unbelievably quiet during the winter, with not a soul around.

“We love to see people coming back again after four or five months. It’s the same people every year.”

However, according to Hillary Fleming and his wife, Moira who own Fleming’s White Bridge Caravan and Camping Park on the outskirts of Killarney, the high cost of access to the country is a “big impediment” to the development of the business.

“The cost of getting here is putting off a lot of people and the Government should be doing a lot more, even it means giving some kind of rebate to visitors, to attract people here.

“We’ve a market of 60 million people on our doorstep and surveys show that people who come to Ireland in their own cars stay much longer. Some of the caravanning clubs in Britain, which has a huge tradition in this kind of holiday, are over 100 years old,” he said.

The recession has led to a drop in demand and overseas caravanners are not as numerous as formerly.

According to Hillary, however, fine weather this summer has got more Irish people moving, with the June bank holiday being particularly busy.

“People are recognising that going caravanning or camping is a relatively cheap holiday option for a family. People can control costs much more and are still away from home.

“They are out in the open and the children have great freedom. Caravan parks offer a relaxing environment and people are again looking more to this sort of holiday option. Barriers between people break down very easily in a caravan park where they’re much more likely to communicate with each other,” he said.

Something often overlooked is the value of caravanners to the local economy, including shops, restaurants, pubs and other places, Mr Fleming pointed out.

Up to 40% of the park’s users are Irish, 20% British, with the remainder from Continental Europe. One German group has been coming to the park for 25 years.