Hello and welcome to my Blog - Off The Grid Ireland
A bit of our back ground story
Our off grid story started with a dream we both shared, A cabin in the woods by a lake.We have been marred just 2 years now but we have been together over 7 years.
My wife is an Accountant and I am a Digital Marketing expert. But our current jobs do not reflect our skills outside the office. I myself am an DIY enthusiast with a lot of experience in DIY, I can do carpentry, tiling, flooring, painting, plumbing and wiring (never do mains wiring unless you are qualified) and many other skills all quite useful for going off the grid in Ireland.
We currently live in Dublin but we are both from Kilkenny originally.
The Dream Comes True
As we always dreamt of the cabin in the woods by the lake we never though we would ever have it (in Ireland anyway). If you are reading this Blog and you are from Ireland you will know that land prices are very high in Ireland and land by a lake which has a wood too very very rarely comes to market and if it does, you would need to win the lotto to buy it.
As we dreamt I would browse the two biggest property websites in Ireland (www.daft.ie and www.myhome.ie) every other day, checking out farm land and sites for sale by or near a lake using the keyword 'lake' and within a two hour drive of Dublin city (a very narrow search criteria). I found sites and land available but none that would fulfil the dream for us.
But one day I found it (kind of) and it all moved very quickly from there. 2.5 acres, half an acre on the lake and the other 2 acres across the road (a very narrow country road) and just a one hour 45 minute drive from Dublin city. The added bonus, the lake connected to the river Shannon, the largest river in Ireland. Of course, as the lake connected to a very large river this meant flooding. So I did a little research on the site and the surrounding area, looking at flood maps and land levels etc. And from my research I discovered the highest flood level recorded covered half of the half acer by the lake itself but never reached the road level or the 2 acres across the road. All this done the day I discover the listing on the property website Daft. There was one more thing missing though, the woods. But that didn't put me off.
That evening back home with my wife I showed her what I discovered, the potential dream plot of land. The price was very good, there was even full planning permission for a 4 bedroom house on the land but again no wood. That didn't deter us as we could plant our own trees and grow our own forest, plus the surrounding area was covered in woodlands.
The next day we went to the bank and applied for a loan, that was approved within 24 hours and we made our offer on the land the very day the loan was approved. Our offer was accepted!
And it turned out the land owner was an old German gentleman would didn't live in Ireland but had bought over 100 acres years earlier in the area and he was now selling all his land as he could no longer travel back to Ireland to enjoy the land and scenery.
Our land
Start Building The Dream
We now had the land, it's time to start building the dream. We decided straight away that we would only plant Native Irish Trees (https://treecouncil.ie/tree-advice/native-species/). We started planting trees straight away as we were lucky that my father had a number of trees in pots ready for planting (all native trees). And after we had planted all the trees my father gave us I ordered trees from www.hedging.ie where we bought our trees from as little as €1 each for 4 foot saplings and €20 for 10 foot trees, Adrian the owner was very helpful and gave great advice he also delivered the trees for free.
So thats were we are now, still planting (November 2019).
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