![\"Catherine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/YLWJZHVNRNFYPCSNJVJNCEUIJ4.jpg\")
Catherine Clancy on holiday in Gdansk, Poland <\/p>\nCatherine Clancy, a primary schoolteacher from Carrigaline, Co Cork, has long been an advocate for a \u201ccoolcation\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t like anything above 30 degrees anyway. I suppose since Covid people are more aware of it, but now I just would not go to the south of France or the Mediterranean for July or August,\u201d Clancy says.<\/p>\n
As a teacher, she cannot choose when she goes on holidays, but she can choose where she goes, and this year Clancy has booked a mountain holiday in the French Alps for the first week in August with her partner and two of her adult children. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to a village on the French-Swiss border and we are hoping that because we are up in the mountains and it\u2019s near a lake that it will be a bit cooler,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
Clancy says she has turned down trips in the past because of rising temperatures. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a group of teachers going away to Nerja [in southern Spain] in July and they invited me along and I said no because of the heat. I would go in October maybe, but I would not go away in July and August,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know other teachers who are going to Reykjav\u00edk this summer who aren\u2019t going to the Mediterranean any more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when I stop teaching I won\u2019t be going on holiday in July and August.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would think that if you have experienced a holiday that is 35 up, you\u2019re not going to go back again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine Clancy on holiday in Gdansk, Poland <\/p>\n
Ian O\u2019Sullivan, a 28-year-old doctor from Castlemagner, Co Cork, has booked a holiday to Madrid with his parents and two siblings at the end of June, and says he is \u201cnot particularly\u201d worried about the heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is to relax \u2013 the hotel has a pool, and then experience the city of Madrid. My brother will want to go to the football stadiums and I believe there are a few Unesco heritage towns outside the city so the plan will be to get the train to see them as well as some shopping.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says that having lived in Australia until recently, he does not mind the heat and that \u201cthe place we are staying in has air-conditioning which makes a big difference\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMain thing I think is not being outside in the heat in the middle of the day. That is key. If you are on holidays you can just chill out. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll be doing any of the city centre sightseeing on the really hot days \u2013 we\u2019ll be sticking to the mornings and the evenings.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IDVLJZTLN5BVRARQYTB3EGMFVU.jpg\")
Ian O’Sullivan <\/p>\n
The heat in Madrid is something O\u2019Sullivan expected when booking the holiday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think when you go to Madrid in June you run the risk, I think you\u2019d be more concerned if you were heading to somewhere like Brittany and it\u2019s 40 degrees.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, O\u2019Sullivan says he can see the appeal of a coolcation.<\/p>\n
\u201cA coolcation is a nice idea. Having lived somewhere like Australia you can see the benefit of going somewhere cool. It doesn\u2019t have to be Ireland it can be somewhere like Scandinavia, not just a sun holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharon Harney, general manager at Cassidy Travel, says she has noticed a rise in customers seeking summer holidays with less intense heat. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last two years we\u2019ve seen a noticeable shift in the types of summer holidays our customers are looking for,\u201d Harney says. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith hotter temperatures across traditional beach destinations and our typically fair Irish skin, we are seeing growing demand from them for cooler climates and activity-based holidays, where they can enjoy their time away without the worry of overheating.\u201d <\/p>\n
Demand is so high that Cassidy Travel has put together a list of destinations for coolcations which include Bergen and Oslo in Norway, Copenhagen in Denmark, Stockholm in Sweden, Reykjavik in Iceland and Helsinki in Finland. <\/p>\n
\u201cInterest in Iceland has continued to grow. There is so much to explore and experience such as geothermal lagoons, volcanic landscapes and, of course, the Northern Lights. Iceland continues to be a bucket-list trip for many people,\u201d Harney says,<\/p>\n
In addition to booking holidays in cooler climates, Irish consumers are booking more last-minute breaks, according to recent data. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe lead-in window for holiday bookings has significantly shortened, and this could be as a result of increasing heatwaves in Europe as well as broader geopolitical uncertainty and cost-of-living concerns,\u201d says Gerardo Larios Rizo, head of hospitality with Bank of Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone who works in hotels that I have talked to has said they have noticed a reduction in the lead-in time for bookings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraditionally people book six\/seven weeks before they travel \u2013 this year it has been substantially lower, where it\u2019s two or three days before that you fill the hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine Clancy, a primary schoolteacher from Carrigaline, Co Cork, has long been an advocate for a \u201ccoolcation\u201d. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,220135,1814,61,60,2846,18335],"class_list":["post-517460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-european-heatwaves","tag-france","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-spain","tag-weather-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}