When Fergus Darcy was growing up in Glasnevin he always knew he was a "metro culchie" because his father and mother were from Galway. They took him out of the city as often as possible and he grew to love the wide open spaces beyond the urban bowl that is Dublin city.

He joined the civil service, an outfit he reckons is the best introduction agency for young people in the entire country, and within a short time had met a Leitrim woman, Kathleen. So when the opportunity came up in 1993 to decentralise to Longford, quite close to the land of his beloved, he grabbed the chance with both hands. He has never regretted it.

Fergus was one of the first of what the locals in Longford call "socies" (because they work in the Department of Social Welfare), and installed the communications network at the offices.

Five years on and a baby daughter later, Fergus is still delighted with the move he made from the city where he has everything he wants.

"I know I will always be a blowin but I love it here. It was the best decision we ever made as a family and it is working out very well," he says.

"I only go to Dublin now to stand on Hill 16 to support the Dubs. We went up a lot at the beginning, but that tailed off when I became involved with the GAA here locally," he says.

"The GAA is the same everywhere. They are the same decent people who love the sport and I got involved in it in the local Lough Forbes Gaels Club." Now he has been given the task of training the local youngsters there and is enjoying every minute of his time in the area.

"I cannot fully explain it to you. I feel I just fit in and I am close to Kathleen's place and I am only an hour-and-a-half from Dublin," he says.

His Galway parents are regular visitors to Newtownforbes, on the outskirts of Longford town, where he lives in a home which he could never have aspired to had he remained in Dublin.

`It is wonderful here. I play golf and we have a great local course where membership is only £200 a year and the overheads are low," he explains. "The fishing is free and while I have not done it for a while, I know it is always there for me. I am a very happy man."

But are there any downsides? Yes, he says, there were one or two over the years - but nothing that was not easy enough to sort out.

"I think Kathleen misses the selection of shops that were available to her in Dublin, but we are only an hour-and-a-half away from there or from Galway. We also love the seaside and that is hard to get to unless we go to Galway or Sligo and, in a way, there are less facilities for small children - but all these things are far outbalanced by the good things that we have here." Fergus is certainly one of those who has joined the band of what has become known as the "NGBs", the Never Going Back brigade of the devolved civil service.