We get paid to live on our own picturesque private island and we love it… but there’s a serious catch
RESIDENTS who are paid to live on a picturesque private island have revealed the serious catch that comes with it.
The caretakers of Great Blasket Island, just off the coast of Kerry, Ireland, say that they feel “incredibly lucky” to live there, but admit that they do sometimes struggle with the lack of amenities.
Emily Campbell, 27, and Daniel Regan, 29, said that it “feels like a dream” to have been offered the unique job opportunity.
The couple are taking a sabbatical from their jobs to look after the island, which has no permanent residents after being deserted in the 1950s because emergency services couldn’t reach it during storms.
Emily, originally from West Cork, Ireland, usually works as a children’s nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital, while Londoner Daniel is a civil engineer involved in HS2.
Now though, they have achieved their “pipe dream” of six months on the island together.
The three holiday cottages and coffee shop on the tiny landmass are owned by Billy O’Connor and his partner Alice Hayes and each year they choose a set of applicants to look after it for them.
The successful candidates usually live there between April and October.
Daniel told breakingnews.ie: “Given the number of applicants in previous years, and that Claire de Haas and Brock Montgomery [last year’s caretakers] applied three times before getting the opportunity, we really didn’t expect anything to come of it.
“When we got offered an interview we were absolutely delighted to get to speak to Billy and Alice and were telling everyone. We had everyone crossing their fingers and toes and Emily’s Mum even lit candles and had the rosary beads out.
“We applied in January when the job was advertised, and the excitement of the prospect really got us through the January blues. Before we had even received an interview, we were looking at buying snorkels and wind-up radios!”
He added: “Alice emailed us to offer us the position on a Monday morning and we leapt out of bed screaming with excitement. It didn’t start feeling real until we spoke to Billy and Alice on a video call after getting the offer.
“It was very strange when our reality changed from ‘I wish we were going’ to ‘Oh my goodness, we are actually going.’”
However, despite feeling “incredibly lucky”, the couple understand that there are a couple of drawbacks to island life.
These include not having a local shop to buy what they need, as well as the absence of electricity and running water.
Daniel also joked: “We’ll have to improve our forward-thinking when we’re on the Island. We’ll also dearly miss our favourite takeaway ‘Dawat’, a Pakistani restaurant on Tooting high street that we frequent more often than we’d like to admit.”
That being said, they are very happy with how things turned out and have been documenting their life on the island on social media.
They added: “We both try to avoid slipping into a ‘destination happiness’ mentality and would prefer to make the most of life now, we’re both conscious of how short life can be. We couldn’t turn down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”