Living off-grid has been something that Sheerin has wanted to do since watching Grizzly Adams as a child on television. Their company, Eirbyte, trains people to make domestic wind turbines and they also sell solar electric panels, hydropower turbines and deep-cycle batteries.Ī secondary business offers web-hosting powered by renewable energy systems. Likewise, a mission to make off-grid achievable for more people characterises the work of Jimmy Dowds and Miriam Sheerin of Offgrid.ie. They run permaculture courses and are always keen to advise others in their attempts to shift towards alternative heating and electrical solutions. When our solar hot water gets too hot it relies on me knowing how to fix it."Ī key goal for Lackan Cottage Farm is to share the discoveries they make about a more self-sustaining lifestyle with others. I am responsible for making sure it stays on. If anything goes wrong "we cannot pick up the phone and call NIE (Northern Ireland Electricity). Golemboski-Byrne highlights the importance of being able to fix your own electrical equipment. They produce enough power for the whole site and a surplus which, from September, will power Northern Ireland’s only off-grid self-catering accommodation in a retrofitted old cottage. They have 4.5kw of PV arrays and a 3.5kw wind turbine, both are second-hand, but still fully efficient. A lot of this is finding solutions that she might benefit from.” “I genuinely believe that life will not be as easy for her generation as it has been for ours. Steve Golemboski-Byrne abandoned his sensible career as production manager at the Newry Democrat to embark upon a more pioneering path for the sake of his young daughter. On the opposite side of Ulster is Lackan Cottage Farm, a six-acre smallholding in the Mourne Mountains, which is part experiment and part demonstration model for an organic, permaculture homestead. For those interested in experiencing this simpler way of life, she offers retreats in her timber and cob roundhouse. She uses rainwater butts for washing and fills flagons from a roadside well in Frosses for her drinking water. There are very few people of my age that have absolutely nothing wrong with them constitutionally, except a touch of arthritis.” Electrical ring circuits are a cause for a great deal of disharmony, physically. Photos: Jason McGarrigleĪ herbalist and teacher of acupressure and plant-collecting, she moved with her husband, artist Jeremiah Hoad, to a thatched cottage without running water. She collects rainwater from six water-butts &, uses baking soda, vinegar & lemon juice for cleaning, uses a spinning wheel and has solar panels and a windmill for electricity. She is a herbalist and tweed expert, and widow of the artist Jeremiah Hoad. Judith Hoad, 78 years old, who lives ‘off-grid’ on a mountain near Inver in Co Donegal. Lackan Cottage Farm in Co Down: a six-acre smallholding in the Mourne Mountains, which is part experiment and part demonstration model for an organic, permaculture homestead Judith Hoad (78) has been living off-grid for 45 years, first in Wales and then, since 1981, on the side of a Donegal mountain. Rural electrification brought such dramatic benefits that there is understandably less appetite in Ireland than elsewhere to abandon the national grid yet the idea of liberating yourself from the cellophane-windowed envelopes of utility companies is encouraging an increasing number of people to generate their own electricity. In a country where 20 per cent of households had no access to power in 1965 (the year the Beatles released Help), it can seem odd to now romanticise the notion of cutting the cable. Off-grid living, once the preserve of conspiracy theorists, megalomaniacal Bond villains and Charles Haughey on Inishvickillane, is becoming increasingly affordable and practical thanks to the latest generation of wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and batteries.
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