My wife and I moved to rural Mayo at the start of the pandemic, leaving Dublin with too many people on top of each other behind us, and finding a much better work-life-balance in a farmhouse on top of a hill overlooking fields and Clew Bay with Clare Island and Achill Island in the background.
I came across Coworking-spaces in both communities which gave me the answer to one of the questions that became important right from the start of my “New Work” journey. While the wife and I are fine with our little offices (both with great views), what about professionals with kids or four professionals under one roof, who don’t want to go back to the big office in the big smoke, but also want separation between home and work? For them, Coworking-spaces in scenic locations like Clare Island and Achill are the ideal solution.
Both spaces are part of the Connected Hubs network which is successfully being developed by the Western Development Commission on behalf of the Irish Government. Coworking in Achill, on Clare Island or in similar rural places all over Ireland means an opportunity to keep workers in the community.
Helping each other is another integral part of these communities, so naturally advice is given from desk to desk and from Coworker to Coworker on a regular basis. But what came up regularly in conversations with residents of these spaces is the question of internationalisation, along the lines “if only people abroad would get to know about what we are doing here in rural Ireland”.
I remembered a conversation that I had with a German Coworking-expert years before Covid and “New Work”. Even then, Tobias embodied the same spirit I now found on Clare Island, in Achill and in other places, so I looked him up.
Tobias Kremkau now works as a Consultant for “CoWorkLand”, a Coop which represents 200 rural Coworking-spaces in Germany. Within these communities, I surely would find the kind of spirit that is so prevalent here at Clew Bay and in similar locations.
How right I was!
Coworkations, where travelling Coworkers actively engage with a hosting Coworking-community, are another integral part of the work of Tobias and his colleagues at “CoWorkLand”. And if you ask me about the origins of “Coworkationers” – they lie here, in these early conversations with Coworkers in both rural Germany and here at home at Clew Bay.