Couple paid to move to stunning uninhabited island – but there’s a catch | World | News
Two lucky volunteers stay on Great Blasket Island (Image: Getty Images/500px Plus)
A lucky couple got paid to move to a stunning and remote location island – but this move brings with it some conditions.
Every year, thousands of people apply to become carers on Great Blasket Island, a beautiful Atlantic island off Dunquin near Dingle in the Republic of Ireland, which has been uninhabited since 1953.
The search for two people to take charge of the store and overnight accommodation on the island during the tourist season is greatly oversubscribed.
This year Aisling Costello and her partner Conor Jones, from Kilkenny, Island, are the keepers of Great Blasket Island.
The couple’s duties will include overseeing three holiday cottages, cleaning and painting, looking after live-in guests and serving tea and coffee. Moreover, they will need to master the “day-to-day running” of the island.
However, there are two big problems; There is little electricity and no hot water.
Despite not being a permanent resident, carers will be kept busy as the job posting highlights the “intensive” nature of the job.
Read more: Incredible European holiday island is a ‘deserted paradise’ with just 2 residents
Read more: Abandoned ‘ghost island’ in UK with spooky World War II ruins that could see people ‘trapped’
Aisling Costello and partner Conor Jones (Image: Facebook)
Aisling and Conor have already moved to the Great Blasket and will likely stay there until the tourist season is over (which could be mid-October, depending on the weather).
Aisling said her friends thought they were “crazy” but were looking forward to the challenge.
he said Kilkenny Live: “I’ve known about this job for a few years because I saw it online and I immediately wanted to do it. I think some people think it’s a completely crazy thing to want to do this, but I quickly realized that this is what I want to do.”
“There are some people you will tell and they just ask why… they don’t actually understand why you would want to do something like this. We just wanted to experience it as much as we could. If the goal is experience, everything is a win.”
There are three cottages on Great Blasket Island (Image: Jam Press/Great Blasket Island Experience)
Aisling says she and her partner were on holiday in San Sebastián, Spain, when they learned their application had been successful.
He assumed it would be a rejection email, given the volume of applicants for the roles, and joked that they wandered around San Sebastián in a daze for two days after receiving the incredible news.
Great Blasket’s keepers have three holiday homes to manage, and the island’s co-owner, Billy O’Connor, will regularly bring in supplies by boat.
Records indicate that approximately 175 people lived on the island in the mid-19th century. The population began to decline, and when it fell to 22 in 1953, the decision was made to resettle them permanently on the mainland.
There were various reasons for this, including extreme Atlantic weather, severe isolation, and a lack of basic services such as schools or doctors.
