Scoil Island: Seas the chance to make this your dream home
A GAELTACHT island’s enticing offer of a year of free rent for a family has seen massive interest – with over 560 applicants and rising.
Comhlacht Forbartha, a community development organisation on Inis Meáin, is offering the chance for a family with school-age children, and a functional level of Irish, to spend a year on the idyllic Aran island completely rent free.
The scheme is intended to counteract falling school numbers on the Co. Galway island, which hosts a pre-school, primary school and secondary school.
The island also boasts a GTEIC remote working hub, with high-speed broadband, conference rooms and hotdesks.
Inis Meáin has the smallest population of the Aran Islands at around 170 people.
The advertisement for the scheme detailed its search for a ‘family with school age children’ the opportunity to live ‘rent free in a lovely modern house’ for the academic year, starting in September.
Dara O’Madaoin, manager of Comhlacht Forbartha, said it’s a way to ‘keep healthy numbers in the schools’.
He added: ‘We’ve been offered a couple of houses from people here on the island, so we’re in a great position where we can kind of look at all the applications and see which house and which family would best suit the situation.’ Applications close on August 10. In addition, the Oileán AiR programme is offering a €10,000 bursary for an artist residency on the West Cork island of Cape Clear, which it says has the potential to be ‘life-changing’ for its recipient. Oileán’s proposal is targeted at an artist who is ‘committed to working in the Irish language’, but they don’t have to be fluent.