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This Remote Irish Island Wants You To Run Its Off-The-Grid Coffee Shop

This Remote Irish Island Wants You To Run Its Off-The-Grid Coffee Shop

There are mild career breaks, and then there’s the far-flung-island career break. If the latter sounds like what you need, step right this way.

The remote Great Blasket Island, off Ireland’s Atlantic coast, is looking for a pair of fit and capable caretakers. The posts – which cover April to October 2020 – include free accommodation and food. On the flipside, there’s no electricity, wifi or hot showers.

Great Blasket Island’s operators casually announced the job vacancy on Twitter earlier this month. According to the tweet, the position involves management of the island’s three vacation cottages and its coffee shop. (If you’re wondering, the coffee shop serves tourists either visiting on boat tours or staying overnight. And apparently it gets busy.)

Wages are not disclosed publicly, but can be discussed on application to [email protected].

Instead of a few intrepid applicants from nearby Cork and Tralee seeking a career break, the ad drew international attention.

Alice Hayes, who placed the ad, told CNN Travel last week they’d received over 7000 applications.

That number maxed out at a remarkable 38,738 applications. Now comes the time to choose. You can read the update on their overflowing inbox and selection process below.


“It’s intense and tough, but it’s a very unique position,” Hayes told Irish publication RTE. “It’s back to basics – fires, candles, stoves, wildlife and nature.”

The successful applicants won’t have the creature comforts familiar to most hospitality jobs. “We use gas hobs in the cottages and the coffee shop,” Hayes revealed to RTE. “We know when the water is boiled with whistling kettles on top of the hobs, and we can cook on the gas hobs as well.”

The island also boasts a small wind turbine that generates enough electricity to charge one device.

Dublin-based couple Lesley Kehoe and Gordon Bond were chosen as last season’s caretakers. Luckily for us, Kehoe documented some of the Great Blasket Island highlights on Twitter.

(Lead Image: Wikimedia Commons)

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