A COUPLE from England have managed to avoid Covid-19 by living on a remote island off west Donegal.
There is no electricity, gas or running water on Owey Island – but Sarah and Luke Flanagan from Leeds have been inhabiting a small cottage there since March.
Owey has been uninhabited since the 1970s, save for its seasonal residents and Julia O’Donnell – the late mother of Donegal singer Daniel O’Donnell – is among its most famous natives.
Sarah and Luke Flanagan spotted an advert for the cottage on Owey just before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and ‘jumped at the chance’.
“We got to the island on around March 14, so literally a week before lockdown, and so far we have missed all of the Covid madness,” Sarah said.
“We’re living in a little cottage with a coal fire using coal we stocked up on over the summer, we use a tank to collect rainwater, we cook using big gas bottles which we also stocked up on in the summer months and we have solar panels which we attach to our car battery to charge throughout the day before we charge our phones.
“We’re actually really well-connected with 4G even though there’s no WiFi.”
The couple lived in Leeds before spending two years in Scotland.
They wash using a kettle which they fill with the collected rainwater.
Sarah and Luke are accompanied by their two rescue dogs.
They have grown their own vegetables, have hens for eggs and have bought turkeys. During the summer they bought a dinghy whig they can use to connect to the Donegal mainland, where their car is parked.
Sarah said: “We just made sure that we had enough food to last us at the beginning of the winter.
“We just wanted to do something different after living in the highlands in Scotland and it’s been a great opportunity for that.
“We wanted to see if we could do it and see if we could handle it and actually we’ve managed to miss everything that’s gone on with Covid so we couldn’t have timed it better.
“It’s good, you don’t realise how much you actually don’t need a lot of stuff.”
Tags:
