Workers are snapping up new opportunities to live less stressed, commute-free lives in locations far from the east, write Isabel Hayes and Conor McMorrow

THE DAYS of 'to hell or to Connacht' are long gone. In the last four years, 40,000 people have moved to the west of Ireland, giving the region its first population increase since the Famine.

Every month, 8,000 people express their interest in moving to Connacht, among them Irish-Americans returning home to live in the west.

But why are so many people, many of them under 35, choosing rural over city life?

Gillian Buckley of the Look West campaign, which was launched in 2004 to attract more people to the region, says quality of life is the single main reason people make the move.

"There has been a very negative perception of the west of Ireland in the past, " she said. "Now people are realising that they can have a great career here while having a much better quality of life, less of a commute and cheaper house prices."

There are still problems to overcome . . . infrastructure in parts of the west is in dire need of improvement and broadband is still not accessible in all areas.

"These are things we have been looking to get improved, particularly the broadband, as it's so important in business, " said Buckley.

"But we hope that by early 2008 it will be available everywhere."

The Sunday Tribune spoke to three people who have left the capital for the west of Ireland and examines the impact of the move on their lives.

1. Mary Howick

AFTER 20 years in Dublin and an hour-and-a-half commute to work every morning, Mary Howick took the decision six years ago to move herself and her son to Ramelton, Co Donegal. She hasn't looked back.

"It's just brilliant here, " she said. "I now have a 10-minute commute to work every morning. I was able to buy a 400-year-old farmhouse at the fraction of a cost of the home I lived in in Ranelagh and my son has grown up in a much better environment."

From being one of 32 children in his class, Howick's son, then aged eight, entered a classroom of just eight pupils. As he has moved into his teenage years, their new location means that outside of school hours he can spend his time surfing, swimming and horse-riding.

"There's so much to do here and I don't have to worry so much about drugs or other kinds of problems you'll find in the city, " said Howick, who is human-resources director at Pramerica Systems Ireland in Letterkenny. "I was lucky that I had the opportunity to move and still earn a corporate salary. It's probably the best decision I ever made."

Leaving Dublin wasn't entirely easy, however. "I was up and down a lot in the first couple of years and, of course, I missed my friends, " she said. "Shopping up here wasn't great for a long time as well but that has improved a lot in the last couple of years.

But overall, it has been really great."

DUBLIN

6.30am: get up
8am: drive to childminder and on to work
9.30am: start work
5.30pm: finish work
6.45pm: arrive home

DONEGAL

7am: get up
8.15am: drive to work
8.30am: start work
4.30pm: finish work
4.45pm: arrive home

2. Adam Coleman

FOR Adam Coleman, the day he realised his small children didn't know him was the day he realised he needed to change his lifestyle. Having spent the previous 10 years in Dublin, London and briefly in Slough as a HR manager for 2,500 people, Coleman's hectic working hours left him with little time to spend with his family.

When his mother became ill a few years ago, he and his wife were going to return to Dublin, but then decided to take a gamble. "It was now or never, " he said. "We had a house in Dublin, but did we really want to continue on with that kind of life? We eventually decided on Lahinch in Clare, a town we knew and loved and where we could be near my mother in Athlone."

After contracting for a year, Coleman set up his own HR company, Interventions. "It's worked out incredibly well for us, " he said. "We have a huge amount of work on and our location has never hindered us in the slightest.

"We're also a lot more flexible with working hours, and while I'm working hard, I also have more time than ever to spend with the family."

While broadband was a problem for a while, it is now available, although Coleman fears the cancellation of the Shannon-Heathrow flight may cause some difficulties in the business. "All the same, it's the best move we could ever have made, " he said. "They'll be taking me out of here in a box."

DUBLIN

6.30am: get up
7.30am: arrive in work, having left home at 7.15am
5.50pm: leave work, pick up children and wife from childminder and work
7.45pm: arrive home

CLARE

7am: get up, work from home for an hour
9am: go to work
3pm: pick up children from school
5.30pm: finish work
5.45pm: arrive home

3. Maria Moynihan

MARIA MOYNIHAN moved to Galway two years ago to set up a software company, Sigma-X, with her husband. Despite living in Dublin for several years, she hasn't missed it since she left. "I used to travel around the city a lot during the day for work and it used to be a nightmare getting stuck in traffic trying to get back into town from meetings out on the Naas Road, " she said.

"I can remember the days in Dublin when you would see people driving into the city centre at 6am and sleeping in their cars until 9am just so they could be guaranteed a parking space."

Now, she and her staff live no further than a 15-minute walk from their office in NUI Galway, and listening to AA Roadwatch is a distant memory. "We have a boat on the Corrib and it is right beside the office, " she said. "For the few good evenings we got during the summer we were able to walk out the office door to the boat and then go up the river for a barbeque. That is something we could never do in Dublin."

Now Moynihan has to remind herself not to bother booking taxis or restaurants in advance and enjoys a more "gentle pace of life".

"The only thing I miss about Dublin is the people that I left behind, " she said.

THE average new property price in the west of Ireland in 2006 was /258,568 compared with /427,000 in Dublin.

In the west, 75% of people spend 30 minutes or less getting to work. In the Dublin area, one in seven people travel for over an hour to get to work each day compared to one in 20 commuters in the west.

A CSO survey at the end of 2002 found the average weekly cost of paid childcare for a household in the west was /84 compared to /119 in Dublin.