‘If anything, our world has got bigger since we moved. We have no regrets’

Amy Breen and her husband Allan Doherty moved

From Baldoyle in Dublin to Rathmullan in Co Donegal with their daughters, six-year-old Rosie and Ally, three, last year.

“Mine was a plum, pensionable job in television production where most work on a freelance basis,” says Amy, “but life was very frantic. We had to drop the kids at creche for 8am, race for the train, then to the office, and rush through meetings in order to leave on time to see the girls before they went to bed. We asked ourselves: why were we living our lives like this? The childcare costs in Dublin were literally a second mortgage — each cost €1,300 per month — and life was relentless. We wondered: could we live slower and better? The decision to move was made on grounds of finance, sleep deprivation and existential crisis.”

Amy and Allan did their sums and figured out that if Allan, a software engineer, could switch to remote working, they swapped their Dublin home for something cheaper in a rural location, and lived more frugally, they would be able to manage on one salary, without childcare.

“The plan was that I would figure out what I would do once we were settled,” says Amy, who took courses in interior design and starting your own business in preparation for the move. Allan is originally from Ballybofey, so Donegal was a location that appealed to them.

They sold their house for €445,000 and Allan secured a job that allowed him to work remotely; the couple rented a house in Rathmullan for a year.

“Before we left Dublin, we thought that we would buy a big old house in Donegal but there wasn’t much on the market,” says Amy.

“Because we were making a lifestyle change, we thought it had to be ‘special’! We did definitely want a sea view. We settled on a 1980s bungalow in Rathmullan for which we paid €282,000. We’ve found it very welcoming, with lots of young families.”

The couple got their keys the day after lockdown and are now planning a self-build refurbishment with a budget of around €80,000. Before lockdown, Rosie and Ally had settled in well to pre-school and junior infants in the local school, and Amy had launched Wild and Rosie (wildandrosie. ie) offering in-person and online interior design, and now has clients all over the country.

“I did worry that I might never make a real friend but there are lots of young families moving back and we’ve met lovely people. It does take time to settle and I do miss Dublin because I didn’t hate it, but Dublin doesn’t love families.

“Online shopping works for everything but we miss restaurants, and we haven’t yet found sushi in Donegal... but you can get peanut rayu in The Counter in Letterkenny! I’m not experiencing FOMO, because so many of our friends are leaving the city, doing their own thing — it’s the stage of life we are at in our mid-thirties. You worry about becoming disconnected but if anything, our world has got bigger. We don’t have any regrets.”