There are two rent-free bedrooms available (one immediately, one soon) in the farmhouse at An Teach Saor. But this is not a place for people who want to save money. It’s a place for people who want to radically reduce their dependency on it all together.
Life at An Teach Saor can be as mucky, bloody and sweaty as it can be satisfying; beautiful and rewarding. It is not a place for anyone wanting to make it safely and conveniently to death. In our over-civilized society it seeks to renegotiate the the deal between comfort and aliveness for those who live here, and is a space that enables those who are enthusiastically seeking it to live in direct and immediate relationship with the surrounding landscape.
It involves hauling, sawing, and chopping wood before breakfast; hot tubs under the night sky; wheel barrowing fresh manure through mud; candle lit dinners from the garden; working in rhythm with life; making blackberry wine; butchering road kill deer; knitting socks; tanning skins; sewing clothes; collecting willow on horse and cart; drying herbs; music; dance; writing; art. Sometimes there will be incredible silence with no distractions from the interiors of your own skull and what’s immediately around you. Other times you may be drinking homebrew at a Shindig in our community event space-The Happy Pig. It encourages you to resist chasing more than you need, and to turn off your screen and to connect to your particular place, in the here and now, instead. Techno-utopians need not apply.
These large rooms would suit single people, couples or a small group (up to four people). Depending on the numbers living here, living costs are between €45-€65 each per month, with the aim to reduce these overtime. There would be a trial period, but it’s ideally suited to those looking to sink roots. We’re also open to turning it into a cooperative.
Those offered a room would be joining Elise and Jorne in the farmhouse, along with Mark and Kirsty, with an eclectic mix of poets, doers, thinkers, performers, dreamers, travellers and misfits occasionally staying in our visitor accommodation.
The farmhouse is part of a 3-acre small holding complete with 110m² event space (with accommodation for 6-15 visitors, a bar, kitchen, composting toilet, shower), a D.I.Y shed, a young orchard and copse, vegetable gardens, two store rooms, a 60m² woodshed and potting shed.
Qualities we enjoy are lightheartedness, ease of communication, openness, honesty, a love of placed culture, a calling to rewild, generosity of spirit and a longing and determination to explore life in its raw elemental form. Enthusiasm is more important than experience.
If you or anyone suitable you know are strongly interested, write a letter with any relevant, succinct thoughts (a bit about yourself, why you’d like to join etc.) to the following address:
Mark Boyle, KnockMoyle, Kylebrack, Loughrea, Co. Galway, Ireland
Undine Downie (Charlie) said on March 15, 2018
This is exciting beyond belief…I’d like to come and visit and bring my skills to help. I am able to do joinery,mixing cement, being inventive and creative with material at hand (SO much can be recycled, upcycled and re-appropriated!), knitting and crocheting, making wine, creating tasty hedgerow salads…have you thought of using wool for insulation? It’s free for the walk (just pick it off the fence if Ireland is similar to Scotland). I have been known to produce sounds resembling folk tunes from my mandolin and bowed psaltery and occasionally I wax lyrical about you name it: I can probably find the prose in it! I’m crap at sarcasm, though and the garden path up which I can be led is truly well-trod! If that sounds acceptable to you all, I’d love to come for a visit although as a general assistant/key worker in a residential home for the elderly I’d need to arrange holiday cover for my night shifts, so a range of dates would be great! I’d come in my trusted car/night accommodation, so wouldn’t need much space!
I like to give hugs, so hugs to you in advance! Charlie