Ireland
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Hi, we are Patricia and Aidan, we are in our 50s and we have two adult children studying in Dublin. We just moved back from France to Ireland to a remote traditional cottage in the West. We have four cats, two rescued cockerels, seven rescued battery hens and three rescued dogs, including a huge gentle pyrénéen mountain dog mix called Marius and crazy Snoopy who is half Newfoundland and half springer. You would have to really love animals, especially big dogs! And not be afraid of mucky work!
We are all vegan, don't use chemicals and our spiders stay where they are!
We are setting up a small holding so there is lots of general garden work to do, building raised beds, cutting and trimming trees, clearing a small river and making a small bridge over it, fencing, general repair work. Also help with the animals would be essential.
Aidan works from home and isn't available to help as much as he would like, so help would be really appreciated.
Help with Eco Projects
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
Farmstay help
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Help around the house
General Maintenance
We can help you with your English and introduce you to Irish culture. Also, explore vegetable growing and animal care. We cook a lot to we can explore vegan cuisine together.
Basically, anything that needs doing! General gardening like weeding, composting, building more raised beds and preparing them for planting, pruning and tidying, landscaping, clearing a small river that runs at the end of our field, creating a path down to it and building a bridge up to an small woodland to the blanket bog behind, helping feed and care for the animals and walking, grooming and playing with the dogs. We are very friendly and relaxed so the house is a bit mucky with the dogs and the chickens running in and out.
We would, of course, expect you to be involved with all the usual things for day to day living like tidying, cooking, washing up etc.!
English: Fluent
French: Fluent
We hope to soon start working on restoring a tiny (really tiny) separate studio where you would have a sink, cooker, bed, table and chair, for somewhat independent accommodation but as we having got that ready yet, you are welcome to stay in the cottage with us when our family though it is a bit small.
Where we live in East Clare is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt areas in Ireland.
Our area is teeming with life; full of birds, deer, foxes, and it is one of the last places in Ireland where pine martens are found. There are some lovely wild walks up behind the cottage across the blanket bog and through the forests.
We are about half an hour from the amazing Lough Derg and Killaloe, where there is boating and walks and nice pubs. We are about an hour from the West Coast of Ireland with its amazing Cliffs of Moher and the wild atmospheric limestone landscape of The Burren. Most of the villages around us, especially Feakle, feature live Irish music regularly. We are 20minutes drive from the village of Scarriff which has lots of facilities and is also on the coast of Lough Derg.
We are isolated, our cottage is 1km from the road and the nearest villages are about 4km away. It would be best if you could drive; then you could borrow our car. Otherwise, we will have a bicycle at your disposal -- but be warned, the roads are narrow with high hedgerows so they are somewhat dangerous. The nearest big town is Limerick where there are buses to and from lots of areas around Ireland, including Dublin and Dublin Airport. We can pick you up from Limerick on your arrival.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
We have two sources of internet at the house as Aidan works from home
small van
One
Maximum 5 hours a day, 4 days a week
