Donegal’s not perfect – but it’s full of things money can’t buy
‘UP HERE it’s different” the saying goes about Donegal. In the aftermath of lockdown, it would appear that people are lining up to experience that difference for themselves by moving northwards.
Covid-19 seems to have sparked an existential crisis in the middle classes about moving to the country, and counties like Donegal are hoping to capitalise on it.
With predictions the virus will spearhead a lasting legacy of remote working, Donegal County Council has just put a call out for submissions from the public on remote working.
But is decamping to the country a way to live the dream? I don’t know about living the dream, but I do know that after eight years of living and working in Donegal, it’s been transformative in my life.
Having grown up on the Inishowen Peninsula in north Donegal, like thousands of young people I left home in the early 1990s to go to university. I settled down in Dublin with my husband and we had two children.
Despite having good jobs, a nice home and a good quality of life in the city, there was a feeling that another life was waiting for us if we were willing to make a change.
One January morning, as the rain fell in sheets, we moved ‘home’ to Donegal with our two boys, one aged six months and the other aged three years.
I asked myself more than once ‘what have we done?’ Many people questioned our sanity, and had the kids been older we may never have moved.
We had all the ingredients for a happy life in the city but the prospect of the life we never tried to live would have haunted us had we stayed.
Eight years down the line, with our sons now aged eight and 11, we have built a totally new life. Technology means remote working is easy. Fibre broadband to the house allows us to function. We have a garden, a dog and a kayak. Access to the beach means we swim all year round. We have family here and good friends.
Living in Inishowen means that we’ve some of the most gorgeous scenery, literally on our doorstep. In the long days of summer it feels like the most beautiful place on Earth. There are days when you will walk the beach at Tullagh Strand in Clonmany and have it all to yourself.
That is not to say it’s a perfect life. Being self-employed in Donegal means working hard and sometimes I feel I work harder now than I ever have before. My husband still travels to Dublin for his work once a week. The rest he works from home.
Our schedules are demanding and sometimes it feels like we’re on the wing of the plane. We spend a good bit of the time ferrying our kids to activities – everything is spread out and takes time.
The winter can seem never-ending and the bright lights of cultural spaces and theatre can seem very far away.
Moving to a remote place takes time and effort. You’ll be so conscious of replanting yourself that you’ll forget about growing anything else for a long time. But many people are keen to give it a go.
According to Brendan McGee, of Franklin’s estate agents in Letterkenny, there’s been a marked increase in calls from people who want to leave the city.
McGee believes Covid-19 has been a driver in the interest – whether it results in house purchases remains to be seen.
What prospective clients want, he says, is a chance to walk the beach in the morning instead of sitting in a car commuting to work, and to have an abundance of natural beauty on their doorstep. These are the kinds of things money can’t buy.
In the poem ‘In Donegal’, Cathal McCabe imagines a life he has never had in an Irish-speaking part of the county. “And I picture a life I never lived, here in Donegal a boiling sea, an endless strand, the slated roof of Errigal – lived in another language, in Teelin, Fahan, Port na Blagh, a fisherman busy on a pier day in, day out, gach lá, gach lá,” he writes.
I didn’t want to be haunted by what could’ve been. I wanted this place to be my ‘gach lá’.
In the long days of summer, Inishowen feels like the most beautiful place on Earth