THE great holiday season has arrived. With the beginning of August cones a general rush to the seaside.

This rush, so far as Fermanagh and its neighbouring countries are concerned, takes place to Bundoran, the natural seaside resort.

Bundoran has had ill-luck this season. The extortionate charges of past years have made holiday makers fight shy, and while those who cannot journey far from home go there, they do so under durance.

Bundoran has at last burst into life. A dead June – so bright with sunshine; a fairly dull July; and now, with the coming of August, Bundoran is itself once again, but not the autocratic Bundoran of 1919 or 1920.

Some houses are yet to be had for the asking, fruit and refreshments are to be secured at less price than is charged in inland towns such as Enniskillen.

Bundoran will revive, and on Monday last it had all the old swing, full of a gay holiday crowd. It was Enniskillen, Clones, and other local towns, all in one, by the sea.

Manchester Lodge, never waning in its popularity, was the first boarding establishment to fill up; while the tea shops are rivalling in style those of English seaside resorts.

Crowder’s, this week, has its orchestra. Dancing and concerts add to the general gaiety.

It is not of Bundoran, now, I wish to chiefly write. Its splendid sea and rocks are well known to all the readers of The Impartial Reporter.

I take them, however, to a resort a little to the north of Bundoran and which I confess I never visited until this season – Rossnowlagh.

Now, here is a real holiday resort. For years I have listened to my friends boasting about its wonderful sea, its beautiful stretch of strand one-and-a-half-miles long, its massive rocks.

I treated this praise as fulsome. I laughed at the idea of a place, that could not even boast of being a hamlet, as being a seaside holiday resort. I have, however, gone, I have seen, and I confess I have been converted by its magnificent sands and the sweep of the ancient yet welcoming coastline.