My partner Darren and I had been teaching in Celbridge, in County Kildare, for three years before we took a career break. We enjoyed travelling by campervan around Ireland and working in a guesthouse on the Aran Islands. We’d seen an advertisement for a six-month posting for caretakers on Blascaod Mór – the Great Blasket – and decided we’d give it a go.
The Great Blasket is the largest of the six Blasket islands off the west coast of County Kerry, and famous in Ireland because islander and storyteller Peig Sayers’s 1936 autobiography, Peig, was taught in schools. The job would involve helping run the island’s three holiday cottages and small cafe, owned by a couple, Alice and Billy, who live in the town of Dingle on the mainland.
