Last summer, Aoife Kelly spent two weeks closing her laptop each evening to head off for a short cycle along the country coastal roads of west Clare. Working from a hub in the town of Cross, Kelly was able to maximise the time she was able to spend on scenic Loop Head.
And she’s not the only one. Thanks to the embrace of remote working since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, bookending your holiday with a period spent working means that those longer breaks so many of us crave can become a reality.
While finding accommodation in seaside resorts around Ireland this summer might be challenging, never mind very expensive, at least finding a place to work has never been easier.
Thanks to a plethora of remote-working hubs, which have sprung up all over the country, many people will spend the summer in their mobile home or holiday home, logging on for work each morning at their local hub, and hitting the beach for a lunchtime swim.
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And thanks to a Government-backed initiative, it has just gotten even easier to do so. Under the Government’s Our Rural Future programme, former banks, cinemas, Garda stations, convents and train stations across the country have become local digital hubs, and many are offering three free days of use this summer, until the end of August.
So this summer, instead of a swift return from your holiday, back to your usual walk around the block or in your local park, consider extending your break by taking a workcation. Surf on your lunchbreak in Lahinch, cycle to work on Achill via the Great Western Greenway, or have an early morning dip in Lough Ine in west Cork.
Remote hubs
Embrace the workcation. It’s what many people will be doing this summer at The Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen, west Cork.
“Our summer season is peak season for us, city hubs tend to be depleted,” says Grainne O’Keeffe, chief executive of the hub, which has capacity for 75 people, and is “at 60 per cent capacity right now”.
But the arrival of holiday makers and people returning home will boost those numbers.
“Typically during the summer months it’s full,” she says.
They come to stay in their second home, a mobile home, a rented holiday home, or with grandparents.
“A lot of people coming to Ludgate would be repeat visitors; a lot of folks left the region but are originally from here and still have connections,” O’Keeffe adds.
“We see a combination of everybody,” she says, citing consultants and entrepreneurs, but also multinational employees, thanks to greater remote work flexibility, with some firms now allowing their employees to work for up to six weeks anywhere in the world.
Sometimes users of the hub opt for a family-type package, with one parent working one week, and the other the next.
Parents can also avail of camps in the area, such as Lego robotics or sailing camps, to keep their offspring busy while they work.
Summer buzz
“Most parents plan early in advance,” says O’Keeffe, adding that the summer visitors keep a buzz in Skibbereen throughout the summer months, likening the town to being like a “hub and spoke” in the area; it’s really busy during the day, with people spreading out to nearby towns of Glandore, Schull and Ballydehob in the evenings.
And it’s not just summer.
During the Easter break, David Duffy, former chief executive of AIB and now chief executive of Virgin Money, swapped his base in London for the sea and sand of west Cork, installing himself in the Ludgate Hub.
Duffy’s parents live in Skibbereen and previous visits typically saw him rush in and rush out over a long weekend. This time however, he packed up the car with his wife and dog Séamus and took the ferry to Ireland for a two-week sojourn.
Renting a house “two minutes” from his parents, Duffy’s daily work commute was a five-minute stroll to the Ludgate Hub.
“It meant we got much more valuable time together, rather than frenetic bursts of time,” he says, adding that the trip was a “wonderful combination” of work and family time.
Duffy’s visit to Cork put Virgin Money’s overall remote working strategy into practice; staff are allowed work from anywhere in the UK, while up to 10 days can be spent abroad.
He expects this “workcation” approach to be increasingly a feature of the future, saying he expects people will look to go away for four weeks, working for two weeks and holidaying for two.
The company, says Duffy, wants to value you for “your output rather than where you sit”, noting that that the old way of working is no more.
“This model of presenteeism – that’s gone.”
Get booking
But with more people working as part of their holidays, expect hubs to book up this summer.
In Clare, eight hubs are spread across the county, many of which are located in tourist-friendly locations such as Miltown Malbay, Kilkee and Ennistymon, just outside Lahinch.
Urban McMahon is responsible for the remote working hub facilities in Co Clare and the overall DigiClare initiative, which encompasses about 100 desks spread across ten hubs (with another one on the way in Feakle).
As in west Cork, summer is peak season for the hubs.
“There was a period there for two-three months during the summer, where we didn’t have a desk in the county,” recalls McMahon. “We were blown away by the level of take up we had in our hubs last summer.”
And this year looks busy again. “There are some gaps in the bookings, but all in all, they’re all nearly full to capacity for July and August and half of June,” says McMahon.
In Clare, the role of the digital hubs is to boost community development – the hub in Cross was a former primary school that closed due to low numbers – and so making a profit isn’t a goal, hence the relatively low daily rate of €10, or €5 for students, available at the Clare hubs.
“If we cover our costs we’re happy,” says McMahon.
Prior to Covid, their purpose was seen as offering a guaranteed level of broadband and other services in rural areas.
“That’s what drove it, a response to provide broadband in remote areas,” says McMahon
These days however, with broadband services now available even in mobile homes across the country, people are using the hubs for the networking opportunities, the professional environment, and the privacy and quiet.
Travel opportunities
Aoife Kelly is one such hub user who likes the privacy and quiet environment they offer.
A Dublin-based graphic designer with strong family links to the Clare region, her paternal grandfather is from Rehy, a townland in west Clare, and the family have retained his home. However, distance from Dublin, as well as a very bad phone connection in the house, meant that Kelly had only been able to visit the area intermittently.
Until last summer, when she and her husband, Charlie Le Brun, spent two weeks in Rehy, booking in to the local Cross hub, “literally a two-minute drive from the house” , for work.
“There is no way we could have spent that time there otherwise,” she says, adding that a perk of the Cross hub is its little side rooms, which can be used for phone calls or Zoom-style meetings. Kelly was also able to use the rooms for music lessons, as she is a concertina teacher.
As Kelly recalls, they went to work each day, wandered a bit around Cross during the day, and then in the evenings they’d go for a cycle, perhaps into Kilbaha, a brisk 7km cycle away for some food, at the pierside Keatings.
Kelly and her husband are frequent users of hubs to maximise their time visiting other places.
“It makes it so easy and flexible for us, we can go anywhere,” she says.
Last summer Kelly was heading off to Inis Oírr with her sister for a holiday. Upon discovering such a hub on the island, her husband opted to come too.
“He could literally “leave the office” and go straight fishing”, she recalls.
This summer Kelly and her husband are back to Rehy and back to Cross for another workcation.
Housing challenges
The one problem with the seaside working dream is finding a bed to sleep in each night. However Sarah Connolly, of rentwestcork.ie, says demand is down this year, with people jetting off on foreign holidays once more.
However, supply is also restricted, with many who previously may have rented holiday homes no longer doing so, while the level of new-build construction in the area is also muted.
This means that the sharp price rises seen last year have not eased.
“Prices went up last year because of demand,” she says, adding: “I don’t see that prices have gone up a huge amount this year, they’re similar to last year.”
A three-bed home in a seaside spot in west Cork will cost around €1,200 a week this summer for example, she says.
Workcation options
Ludgate, Skibberreen:
Daily rate: €25
Half day: €17.50
Off season rate: Pay for four days use for five
Kilkee, Cross, Miltown Malbay, Ennistymon, Co Clare
Daily rate: €10
Weekly package: €40
Student daily rate: €5
An Cheathrú Rua, Achill, Spiddal, Kilcar
Daily rate: About €20 (more competitive rates available for longer stays)
Barraduff Community Hub, Killarney, Co Kerry
Daily rate: €13
Weekly package: €45
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