10 January 2024 , 16:47
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A couple who were paid to live on a remote island with no electricity or running water have been miraculously cured of their illnesses since relocating there.
Nurse Emily Campbell, 28, from Cork, Ireland was living in London with her civil engineer boyfriend Daniel Regan, 30, when she came across an advert to become caretakers of the remote Great Blasket Island. After applying on a whim, she got the role - beating thousands of applicants in the process.
Great Blasket Island, off the west coast of Ireland, lies around two kilometres from the mainland and was inhabited until 1954 when the land became unsustainable to live on. Since relocating, Emily says her health has improved and the pair are now questioning if they’ll ever be able to leave.
Island life for Emily and Daniel means running the café and three holiday lodges to cater for tourists - but the pair say it can often get very quiet, and they can go for days without seeing any visitors if bad weather stops the ferries from reaching them.
Daniel and Emily have to stock up on hundreds of cans of food (@greatblasketcaretakers/Instagram)
The pair help look after the island's seal population (@greatblasketcaretakers/Instagram)The pair have also been helping look after the island’s seal population and were featured on Channel 5’s Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild, where Emily spoke about how the sun 'sets in November and doesn't appear until February”.
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
While life on Great Blasket Island is peaceful, there are some drawbacks. Daniel and Emily say they have to stock up on hundreds of cans of food and often resort to “baked beans for dinner” if they can't get food from the mainland. Daniel said: “To the west, there's nothing until you reach Newfoundland in Canada.”
The pair also live without electricity, relying on candles or stoves to light their home, and their only access to water is from a spring situated above some of the cottages on the island. But despite these challenges, Emily says their new home is less “emotionally draining” than London. She said: “I was burned out, my body was given stress signals”.
Emily had previoulsy worked as a children’s nurse at London's Great Ormond Street hospital, where stressful working conditions had caused her eyes to become sore, red and flaky. Despite visiting doctors and specialists, Emily was not able to get a diagnosis - but since relocating to the Blaskets, her illness has miraculously vanished.
Great Blasket Island, off the west coast of Ireland, (Getty Images/500px Plus)Emily says she would like to call the island her permanent home and grow her own food, but harsh conditions on the land may prevent that from happening.
Owners of the island's cottages and coffee shop Billy O’Conner and partner Alice Hayes, hire new caretakers every year to look after the properties. Daniel told breakingnews.ie in February: "When we got offered an interview we were absolutely delighted to get to speak to Billy and Alice and were telling everyone.
"We had everyone crossing their fingers and toes and Emily’s mum even lit candles and had the rosary beads out. We applied in January when the job was advertised, and the excitement of the prospect really got us through the January blues. Before we had even received an interview, we were looking at buying snorkels and wind-up radios", he added.
The couple have since left the island due to the cold weather and are travelling around Indonesia in the meantime.