If necessity is the mother of invention you could say that boredom is its father.
It was "pure boredom" that prompted Shane O'Ciardhubhaín and his wife Wendy Riordan to reframe their boutique camping business, Pamper The Camper – on hold this summer as all the music festivals have been cancelled – pivoting to supply the nation of staycationers with a backyard glamping great escape.
“The kids were on their phones and they needed to get outside,” he says.
In an effort to get his daughters Realtin (7) and Lili (14) off their devices they erected one of their beautiful bell tents, the kind you may have already admired at festival camp grounds at Electric Picnic, Body and Soul and a slew of other events in their back yard to tempt the girls out into the great outdoors.
Shane likes his creature comforts so they installed airbeds and brought the duvets and pillows from their own beds. For the girls, the icing on the camp cake was the lure of a movie night under canvas. The parents had bought a screen and projector on Amazon and screened Aladdin.
In their rural retreat about three miles outside Abbeyleix the family has spent their evenings stargazing and lighting fires to cook out. "We've been looking at Venus over the last few weeks," he says.
If you fancy doing something similar the entry-level three metre bell tent in polyester will sleep three adults or two adults and two kids. It costs €399 and like all their tents comes with an integrated ground sheet that you can remove during warm spells like now to roll up the sides of the tent and get air flowing through it. A canvas tent of the same size costs €549. If you want to take the tent on the road once restrictions lift the polyester option is lighter to transport, the three metre size weighs 17kg versus 21kg for the canvas option. Tent sizes in polyester extend up to a five metre design that costs €599 and will sleep five adults on air beds or a clatter of kids. The largest option in canvas is a six metre tent. It costs €1,149.
The selection of tents to buy is listed under the staycation button on the couple's website, pamperthecamper.com.
