Moving to Mayo - seeking new life

seekingsolace

Hi this is my first post. I'm happy to have found this discussion forum.

We are moving to Mayo (maybe Achill/Wesport)

I'm from London, but my hubby grew up on a farm in Mayo.

I have been to Ireland many times and love the Achill area, and Belmullet too.

Could anyone be kind enough to say whether it's possible to make a living (small business)
in this area? Is it very expensive? Our children all have Irish Passports and are all under the age of 13.

We just want a quiet life for us and our children. We hope to find a modest house
and a place to start a small business (on a small budget)

Is Ireland recovering financially? London is very different from rural Ireland. We have a glimpse of recovery but nothing substantial.

Any help would be greatly welcomed.

homewardbound11

Best of luck on your move to mayo. We moved back after our 2 kids reached school age. This is by choice for our kids and on that side it has been a great success.nothing wrong wuth giving your children the same growing up experience as you had. I work around the country so i have to travel quite a bit. I would love to have your drive for being self employed with your own business but my work us mostly in the cities.
I guess others will post on what type of business, your market and custom er base. Best of luck anyway .


On recovery. The west sadly is very slow on the recovery. In fact I would say that the recovery is significently noticeable in Dublin. Definitely rural life in the west is a step back all right. It has improved though. A little more back at work but a huge dent in the youth immigrating. I would say the dark days of 09 to 12 are improving and the shock of the construction crash has evolved this employment group into more diverse employment activities. Hands up to those who did. And slowly they too are returning to construction on a lot smaller level.

You will get freat advice in the business sections of boards and on support and on grants.

Last but most important if you want to blend in . Buy a mayo Jersey and be prepared to talk for hours on mayo football I have to say its beyond nuts down here of which I have caught that fever.

seekingsolace wrote: »

Hi this is my first post. I'm happy to have found this discussion forum.

We are moving to Mayo (maybe Achill/Wesport)

I'm from London, but my hubby grew up on a farm in Mayo.

I have been to Ireland many times and love the Achill area, and Belmullet too.

Could anyone be kind enough to say whether it's possible to make a living (small business)
in this area? Is it very expensive? Our children all have Irish Passports and are all under the age of 13.

We just want a quiet life for us and our children. We hope to find a modest house
and a place to start a small business (on a small budget)

Is Ireland recovering financially? London is very different from rural Ireland. We have a glimpse of recovery but nothing substantial.

Any help would be greatly welcomed.

seekingsolace

thank you so much for replying. We are all very excited. We love Mayo, more than love it. The people, the beauty, even the sunshine (lol) when it comes out.

kippy

Achill/Belmullet/Westport are lovely areas and great areas to bring up kids in a relatively safe environment however there are a few things that you need to be well aware of before moving lock, stock to any one of these areas.
The weather. When its good, its the best place on earth, particularily Achill. When its not, and it's not a lot, there really aint that much to do.
The remoteness. I suppose Westport aint that remote, relatively speaking, it is a small town after all, but Achill and moreso belmullet are a long way from the nearest bit towns.

The other thing I would ask, the success of you business would depend greatly on what it actually is and where it is located. You really need to put some thought into those things.

I'd extremely difficult to make a living at any small business in Achill or Belmullet, outside of the summer months and even at that summers have gotten quieter (the weather being a major factor), so if your business depends on footfall then that would be tough.

seekingsolace

thanks Kippy, very informative. We have a number of ideas for a business, and are researching others. If you have any ideas let me know - my hubby had a few ideas but I overruled them when he mentioned an Ann Summers franchise (just joking).

TopTec

Hello seeking solace,

It will be the best move you ever make if you embrace the country and the people. Like you I lived in London until 4 years ago and arrived here having never lived in Ireland and bought a small rundown cottage near Ballina. It was certainly a shock how the pace of life is so different here.

I have found that he cost of living slightly more expensive than London, groceries are about 10 - 15% more expensive. Fuel is slightly cheaper especially if you have a diesel. Mobile phone charges, broadband, landline and electricity is about 20% more expensive.

Getting used to the domestic fuel situation has been an eye opener. I had never seen a sod of turf before I arrived and the cost of oil is high so in year 2 I was up on the bog with the locals working 6 hoppers, feeling an idiot when all my footing fell over!

Education costs are so different too. Paying for your own books, teachers presents, cash gifts to the school, and the influence of the church was all a bit of an eye opener.

On the flip side Council tax is low, (for now), water charges are just about to start. There is a sceptic tank fee but nobody seems to know where that is going in the future.

Car and house insurance, and road tax is more expensive.

What is cheap though is the beautiful countryside, the beaches, the mountains and almost all the people. (You still get the odd misery). I went out out my way to get to know the locals and get on brilliantly with my local farmers. I think people are happy that my place is not just another holiday home.

Yes, there is crappy days when the plumber or electrician fails to arrive, or one of the gutters overflows into my turf shed or loose sheep eat my sweet peas but so far the experience has been 95% positive.

I tend not to describe how brilliant it is here when I go back to the UK in the fear that more people will come!!

Good luck with your move.

TT

seekingsolace

Hi Toptec - thanks for all the info. It's great that your experience is 95% positive. I hope we are that lucky.

monument

High-speed connectivity is an issue here.

I know even central London has it's broadband issues, but in a lot of Mayo there's still no hope of any decent broadband at all or coverage and/or quality is patchy.

Even in larger towns in the county, 50Mbps is at the higher end. And that's only of you're lucky -- check the area abs the house first.

There is a rural broadband scheme and a new expansion of that has been announced but we don't know how good or bad that will turn out to be. The government dropped it's speed targets for this.

There's also no 4G roll out in Mayo yet (unless that has changed recently) - elsewhere (ie in Dublin) operators seem to be providing 20Mbps. As companies will logically do, the national rollout is being focused on larger population areas to start with, buy the regulator sold the licenses without demands for good area coverage.

West Net seems to be one of the best / only options outside towns but you'll pay Irish high-speed prices for just up to 4Mbps. See http://westnet.ie/ a friend uses them and says it's a good service but 4Mbps is low if you're used to 20Mbps+.

How important any of the above is depends on your personal use and the business you decide on.

seekingsolace

Thank you for that information. Internet connection is very important to us. I will check out the company you mentioned. Few of us can remember life before the internet, and we are no different, it's part of our lives today.

Can I ask why more companies do not compete with each other re: broadband? Not enough population to make it worth their while?

monument

seekingsolace wrote: »

Thank you for that information. Internet connection is very important to us. I will check out the company you mentioned. Few of us can remember life before the internet, and we are no different, it's part of our lives today.

Can I ask why more companies do not compete with each other re: broadband? Not enough population to make it worth their while?

I should have said:

In towns, such as Westport you have eircom (the equivalent of BT) and resellers such as Vodafone and Sky. You'll need to have or get a landline phone line.

Eircom's efiber product is the up to 50Mbps product I mentioned in my last post and other companies can resell this to you. It's now actually been sold as up to 100Mbps, but I've yet to hear Mayo users get that: http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/

Their older "up to" 24Mbps product is listed here, but it don't have a coverage map: http://m.eircom.net/standardbroadband/

The regulator has a cost guide here: http://www.callcosts.ie/broadband/Broadband_Calculator.175.LE.asp -- you won't have access to UPC or Magnet.

MedusaV8

Best of luck to you on your big move. I will watch this tread with interest as me and the other half hope to be moving to Mayo too. A little further south to you, well almost as far south as you can go in Mayo to the shores of Lough Corrib. We are just waiting on the sale of our house in the UK.

Vandango

seekingsolace wrote: »

Hi this is my first post. I'm happy to have found this discussion forum.

We are moving to Mayo (maybe Achill/Wesport)

I'm from London, but my hubby grew up on a farm in Mayo.

I have been to Ireland many times and love the Achill area, and Belmullet too.

OP you really won't be sorry, they are amongst the most beautiful places you could live. I can't get home enough.

murray.eoghan

Vandango wrote: »

OP you really won't be sorry, they are amongst the most beautiful places you could live. I can't get home enough.

i moved from killawalla to cork. I really mis the quite of my old house