It all started nine years ago, when my son was a baby and I spent a week's holiday on Achill Island in Co Mayo. I recall noticing a house across the road, set way back under the Minaun Cliffs, and an older man, wearing glasses and bright clothes, walking incongruously down a long driveway behind some sheep. I wondered about the faraway house and the approaching man, who had a studious air.
He was Norman Hudis, an Englishman who wrote the first six Carry On films 40 years ago and who is still going strong in Los Angeles, having written the screenplay for a new animated film, A Monkey's Tale. The house on the hill belonged to his wife, Rita, inspiration for Carry On, Nurse. Norman introduced himself, we had a chat and kept in touch by post. Seven years after that unexpected encounter, Rita sold me her seaside home.
The more time I spent in the house in Dookinella the healthier I felt and the more I wanted to be in Achill full time. There was only one hitch: my job in The Irish Times was 200 miles away. Carry On, Commuter, I hear you say. Again, fate lent a hand. A job-share with another sub-editor, a partner who works from home and a national school down the road for my son solved the major problems. And for two years, until the rail dispute, I have commuted by train from the west of Ireland to work in Dublin.
My weekly pilgrimage from Achill, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge at Achill Sound, goes like this: car to Westport or Castlebar, a train trip of 3 1/2 to four hours to Heuston Station, then the No 90 bus to D'Olier Street. Total travel time? I don't know: I stop counting in Tullamore.
Dublin feels like a war zone after Achill. I work for two nights in the airless newsroom and early next morning I head west. Favourite moment: crossing the Shannon in Athlone. I'm only gone for 48 hours but in that time it seems my son has grown.
I like the train, which becomes my mobile office, and I read and write, totally absorbed. The Westport-Dublin service usually is fine but alternative transport during the rail dispute has been awkward and requires stoicism. "You're not going to get much work done, with all this jostling," a Knock pilgrim warns me on the bus. "Would you like a banana?"
Not for the faint-hearted but worth it to enjoy our island home, a place of elemental force and scenic beauty, in keeping with its long association with painters and writers. "Living in the landscape," John Behan, the Galway-based artist, calls it. With the light changing on the mountains and the heart-stopping sea views, it is like waking up in an art gallery.
"Once it was, `There's nothing here, you can get out as fast as you can.' Now people are trying to get out of cities as fast as they can," Tom McNamara, chairman of Achill North West, a local community development company, and owner of the Boley House restaurant, comments. "It's great to see young families coming back."
Sculptor Ronan Halpin (42), who moved to Achill two years ago with his wife and two children, has lifelong links with the island. His parents met here in the 1940s and bought a holiday home in Keel. One of 10 children from Drogheda, Co Louth, Ronan remembers the family heading off with a trailer of leather trunks full of raincoats, wellies and Aran sweaters. His father made him a body board out of wood. He swam in the rock pools and learned to surf in Achill.
Ronan, who attended Yale School of Art, works mainly in steel, brass and glass. His work "King and Queen" on the Trim bypass was commissioned by Meath County Council. He also made the "capping piece" on Mill Mount, a stone fort in Drogheda, which, he says, "can be seen from 30 miles away". The Halpins run a studio shop from their home in Keel.
The island, with a year-round population of about 2,800, is known for its wild winter gales and its hard history of emigration and loss. But today it is a mecca for people interested in adventure sports and other outdoor pursuits. The wetsuits tell the story of Achill in August. On the Blue Flag beach at Keel, boys and girls clutch boogie boards, trying to catch the waves. In Dookinella, a man carrying a surfboard under his arm walks briskly towards the sea. "When you get the weather, there's no better place to be," Johnny Lee, retired Aer Lingus pilot and longtime surfer, remarks.
My son, Conor (9), owner of his first wetsuit, spent seven years in south Co Dublin and made a brave adjustment when we moved. His verdict on Achill? "It makes you feel great to be alive."
When the sun is shining from Dooega to Dooagh, the contentment level is high. But the July heatwave ends and mist envelops the Atlantic views. "Do you think it will lift?" Liz Curry calls from next door. That is Achill, too.
Richard O'Hara, tall, tanned and kitted out in wetsuit, shades and "buoyancy aid", runs a summer activity camp for children, now in its 20th year. Owner of McDowell's Hotel and Activity Centre in Dugort, he sees Achill as an "adventure island" for windsurfing, kayaking and canoeing, "regardless of the weather".
Autumn in Achill is a different story. Mrs Bridgie Hurst, a lifelong Dookinella resident, tends the fire while her daughter, Celine, goes to the bog to get turf. "You can't beat getting back to the old reality," Mrs Hurst, a great-grandmother, observes.
For information on Achill, see achilltourism.com
ssullivan@irish-times.ie