Irish family: We abandoned our holiday in France when the temperature hit 41 degrees

OUR FAMILY HOLIDAY ended on the third day; we just hadn’t realised yet. My wife and I had travelled to northern France with our three kids, aged seven months, two and five.

As the heat went over 40 degrees, almost every waking hour was spent trying to keep our seven-month-old baby cool. 

We had chosen Brittany over more southern destinations in France, because we wanted to avoid extreme heat for our young family. Instead, the recent heat dome hit hard in the area, bringing temperatures of up to 41 degrees.

It was deeply uncomfortable to do anything but exist in, and with three small children, it was too much of a challenge. 

A week into our planned two-week holiday, we packed up and came home.

Looking back now, we probably should have left even earlier. It is difficult to abandon a holiday you have saved all year for, but our days had become dominated by trying to keep three kids safe in conditions that were increasingly unmanageable.

The kids became lethargic, and encouraging them to eat and drink was a constant concern. It was the drier nappies that clinched our decision to return.

Advertisement

Worrying effects of extreme heat

It is hard to describe the feeling of not being able to cool down. The house we rented didn’t have air conditioning, and while the owners provided a fan, it just circulated hot air at you.

The houses in Brittany, similar to ours in Ireland, were built for cooler weather. To try and keep the kids cool, we had a rota of toddlers in and out of a cold bath, kept their heads wet, and eventually carried the mattresses downstairs so all five of us could sleep together on the sitting room floor, the only room in the house with any kind of bearable temperature.

Within hours of its arrival, the extreme heat encroached every part of daily life: fans, ice and ice-cream sold out; slides and swings became too hot to touch; and the door handles burnt the children’s hands.

The swimming pool that had been a perfect cool reprieve became too hot to function, turning swamp green.

What struck me most wasn’t simply the temperature itself; it was the speed at which everyday life began to break down. By the second day of 40-degree-plus temperatures, an eerie autumn appeared to have been triggered as flowering plants began to shrivel, crops were exhausted in fields and leaves were already falling from the trees.

‘The new normal’

I work on climate and sustainability projects professionally, so I spend much of my time discussing the effects of climate change, such as this type of extreme heat. Yet this was the first time I had felt so viscerally how quickly climate change is unfolding in front of our eyes.

Our difficult family holiday was, for many others living in France, a public health emergency with devastating consequences, as schools closed, hospitals were overwhelmed, and heat-related deaths and drownings increased. 

While we were there, the news broke that two nuclear power stations shut down because river water that’s used to cool their reactors had become too warm, with threats of power cuts.

Related Reads

Government's use of the Dáil guillotine for 'anti-climate' legislation labelled 'undemocratic'

Temperature hits 32 degrees in Athenry, as many places experience hottest day on record

Bunking off work for the beach today? Here’s how to check where it’s safe (and clean) to swim

I’m fully aware of the privilege afforded to us, given we could just pack up and leave. There are so many who don’t have the luxury to escape this extreme heat. 

What stayed with me most, however, was the attitude of local people. Whether speaking, in my rusty Leaving Certificate French, to parents, shopkeepers or neighbours, the conversation repeatedly returned to climate change. No one questioned whether it was happening, instead, they spoke about how they were adapting to it. Again and again, I heard the same phrase: “C’est la nouvelle norme” – this is the new normal.

A warming Ireland

In Ireland, we often think about climate change through flooding, storms and coastal erosion. Extreme heat still feels like something that happens somewhere else to someone else, but a week in Brittany challenged that assumption.

Brittany is not Ireland, but the similarities are striking, with its Atlantic climate, verdant landscapes with ferns and foxgloves, and homes built to keep the heat in rather than out.

Watching a place so familiar struggle to cope with temperatures that would once have seemed unimaginable felt less like witnessing somebody else’s future than catching a glimpse of our own.

As I write this on the ferry home, my overwhelming feeling is relief; the kids are beginning to come back to themselves in the cool air, and Ireland is not experiencing these extreme over-30-degree conditions. Yet. 

But that relief should not be mistaken for reassurance: what we experienced in Brittany felt like a warning of how quickly normal life can unravel when places built for one climate are forced to function in another.

The locals in Brittany had stopped asking whether this would keep happening. They are already asking how to live with it. To cope. We haven’t got there yet.

Conor Dowling is a Green Party Councillor with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, and serves as the party’s spokesperson on Education.

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Learn More Support The Journal

Sign Up
The Journal's climate change newsletter Follow the biggest news story of our times. Sign up for our monthly climate newsletter

Sign up
You are now signed up