Dollymount Strand

It was 7pm on one of the warmest days of the year, in a mid-July heatwave, but as I traversed the wind-whipped sand with my nine-year-old daughter, feeling oh so exposed and oh so cold, I wondered was I mad. Which, on pretty much any Irish beach on an average summer is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

But this wasn't an average summer - not an average week of it anyway. We'd been transported to Ibiza or some place, we were all going mad with sun screen and ice cream and exposing our lily white limbs and diving into the sea at the drop of a hat.

But Dollymount was putting paid to all that new-found ambition, and I was feckin freezing and the kid was not helping, going full force with the moans: 'why didn't we go to Malahide, it's nice in Malahide', 'I want to go back to the lake, it was warm at the lake' and, finally, 'MUM WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE?' And we hadn't even made it to the water's edge.

So the big surprise was, when we did arrive there, finding it as warm as a bath. It was the first time I have entered the sea off any coast of Ireland and not done that ridiculous body shock dance, and though I am known for my ability to drag out submergence for a very considerable time - the length of time that makes people wonder if really we're not just dealing in the realm of masochism, albeit just a different kind to regular Irish sea swimming - I walked right in feeling no pain. I was down in moments. It was gorgeous. It's so shallow in Dollymount at the best of times that I guess the sea really can properly warm up, and this truly was like Ibiza.

The big boats way out in the bay sent in ripple waves which we jumped, and as the lowering sun shot sparkles across the water, I felt all the charms of Dublin bay, and thought for a moment we might be in heaven.

And all the negative press from the kid: forgotten. 'Mum, what a GREAT idea, this is the best beach, EVER!'

On a practical level, it is exposed - great if you are into kites - but there are dunes. For a beach day, make for the dunes. But be prepared to have to walk to the water's edge.

It's a wide, long stretch which attracts lots of Dubliners, so if it's seclusion you're seeking, go further out, to Howth or Sutton.

Dollymount embodies the spirit of north Dublin, and some of the soul too. Few for miles round over age 30 didn't take their first driving lesson on its hard-sands - now no longer a possibility - and most young Dubliners have sipped on a few tins and partied there as an adolescent rite of passage. Its defining wooden bridge leading to the promenade walk is host to many cars, bikes and pedestrians every day. The walk ends at the landmark Marian statue, Our Lady Of The Port Of Dublin. One side looks out over the industrial landscape of the bay down to the Clontarf front, the other side out to Howth and, a nod away, as far as the Wicklow hills.

I felt the strength of its lure one evening at midnight a decade ago when, out of the blue, I insisted to my husband that we drive out there. We walked its length and I gazed at the path of the moon through the water. I breathed in the salt air, then we headed off and ate chips. One night later, I became a mum for the first time, and that impulsive trip perhaps represented a last bid for glorious freedom for a while to come. As I say, Dollymount has a special place in the hearts of north Dubliners, and it embraces us all, for better or worse.