Shirley Valentine's romance in the sunset on Mykonos may have been the fantasy of many English women: love on a sun-soaked island. But for many women who decide to stay on after their Greek holiday is over, they face the reality of hard work and the fear of being isolated. And yet, the Shirley Valentine dream has come true for a number of Irish women. Clare Doyle (35) from Gorey first came to Greece in 1985 for a holiday in Ayios Nikolaos and admits: "I got the bug for Greece then."

A career break from the bank in 1992 gave her the chance to realise the hopes she nurtured for seven years - to live in Greece. She went to Crete to work for six months as a rep for an Irish tour operator. Working with a team of three, she looked after three flights a week with Irish holiday-makers in Hersonissos, Malia and the Stalis, three lively resorts on the northern coastal strip between Iraklion and Ayios Nikolaos.

She went back to the bank the following year but the bug for Greece was still gnawing at her. And there was another love too: she had met Andreas Aretakis, who was running a restaurant in Gouves. Clare and Andreas were married in Gorey last December and now live in Gouves.

Clare warns against any romantic images of working in the sunshine: "It's not a holiday. The work is quite intense. We work hard for six months and the Greeks demand it. They don't understand a day off. If you come out to work, that's what you'll do."

Patricia Fanarakis from Sally noggin, Co Dublin is one of the longest settled Irish women living in Crete. As Patricia Merrigan, she first arrived on the island in 1975, a former Dominican Convent schoolgirl hitching through Europe. She returned to Greece in 1976, settled in Crete in 1977 and married Giorgios Fanarakis, a building contractor in a small mountain village.

A working mother of seven, she started her own business 15 years ago. Now she has three small hotels or apartment blocks, and a supermarket. Her three sons and four daughters are involved in running Hotel Fanarakis, Patricia Apartments and her supermarket. "We'd like our children to live with us," she says. "So creating businesses for them is like running a school."

Over 20 years, Patricia has seen Malia grow from a small seaside village to a bustling resort and a "concrete jungle". She sometimes wonders aloud whether it has all happened too quickly for the local Greek people but then stops in her tracks: "The tourists are keeping my hotel open and hopefully my children won't have to emigrate."

In the quieter village of Piskopiano, Martina Gunnigle (24) from Santry, Dublin, is working as a waitress os, while her boyfriend, Costas Halkiadakis works as the chef.

Martina first came to Crete in 1993. She returned on a two-week package to Piskopiano the following year and ended up working for six months in the Lychnos restaurant, where she met Costas.

She returned for another sixmonth stint in 1995. And by then she was smitten by Crete: she had fallen in love with the Piskopiano, Koutouloufari and Old Hersonissos, three mountain villages strung together on a road overlooking the resort of Hersonissos.

And she was also in love with Costas. os, a small mountain village close to Ayia Varvara, which claims to be the omphalos (navel) of Crete. Last year, Martina and Costas worked together in a hotel and a beach bar. When winter came, they took a three-bedroom apartment in Iraklion, where off-season rents are low. But they spent the weekends in Zaros, picking the olives on a small piece of land Costas has bought near his home village.

This summer, they have a small studio in Koutouloufari but it's three times more expensive and only one-third the size of the place they had in Iraklion. But eventually, they hope to build their own house in one of the mountain villages. onissos.

Clare Doyle's warnings about hard work ring true for Martina and Costas this summer - they'll see little of each other until the season ends in October. She says they work 12 to 13 hours a day, seven days a week. "But we have money in the bank and we want to buy land in Piskopiano, Old Hersonissos or Koutouloufari. I would love to live around here and build slowly in one of the villages."

Costas comes from a large family with five brothers and a sister but, typically of Greek traditional families, "his sister does everything". This is a male-dominated society but this is where she wants to live: "It's great, I love it."

This summer her father, Jimmy Gunnigle (52), came to Crete for the first time, met the Halkiadakis family. o. "Everything worked out perfectly," says Martina and now she's sure she's staying on in Greece. Her dream is to open a small business "without too much hassle - a cafe or small taverna, with simple food."

But why do Irish women make a go of it when the Shirley Valentine dream seems to go sour for so many English women? Manolis Chrysakis, who owns the Mika Villas in Piskopiano, thinks Irish people have a better sense of humour, are more laid back and more adaptable to the Greek way of life.

Clare Doyle thinks Greek families are nervous about mixed marriages, worried that the woman will head home with their Greek grandchildren.

Patricia Fanarakis says that with Irish women "their tolerance level is better" and they have a better understanding of Greek family structures and strictures. "In my 20 years, I've never felt like a foreigner."