Remote Working in Sligo | From New York to Sligo - a Coney Island Tale

Moving back to Ireland with a young family in tow is rarely straightforward. Apart from housing and schools, a new office is also a requirement. So, when Adrian Kelly and his wife Maria decided to move back from New York to their native Dromahair, the search for a suitable workspace was high on the list of priorities.
Adrian was working in the Big Apple for ECD NY, a construction company that specialises in building skyscraper foundations. The company was keen to keep him, and therefore offered to let him work his own regular hours here in Sligo, while linking in with the New York office on a daily basis.
The Strand Campus in Strandhill, County Sligo, provided Adrian with the flexible office solution he and the company needed. It gives him and his staff 24 hour access to a large and comfortable office, as well as to meeting rooms and teleconferencing solutions, along with high speed broadband.
"It's actually perfect. It worked out great for us. We were looking for an office space to get set up and get started. A local vendor told us to reach out to our local Enterprise Centre and we called the Strand Campus. You're on a month-to-month rental agreement, the rents are very affordable and there are other businesses there, so you get to meet people and socialise with them."
Just a 25 minute drive along the shores of scenic Lough Gill brings him on a pleasant daily commute to Strandhill. Here, the staff create 3D models of the skyscraper substructure, which is then sent to the engineers and planners in New York before being built and installed on site there.
"This is a brand new team here," he says of his team of three that are all graduates from ATU. "The team here is doing a great job. A lot of the reasons that we came to Strand Campus is to have access to the graduates and students in ATU Sligo. They run an engineering programme and these students come out and they're ready for this kind of work."
"The work that they are doing right now is that they are 3D modellers, they're going to build a model of the structure that we are going to build in the field. Once they have that finished, we send the files to New York, where they fabricate the rebar that goes into the field, that creates the foundation for the skyscraper that is going to be built on top of it."
Explaining what must be a complex engineering process in such simple terms doesn't deflect from the fact that this highly skilled work can be done remotely. Whether you send the completed plans from an office on downtown New York to the fabricators, or whether it's done from an office in the West of Ireland, the process remains the same. The big plus for Adrian is that he can do this in one of Sligo's most scenic villages, a long way from the hustle and bustle of New York.
"The commute to Strandhill and to Strand Campus every day is a lot easier than sitting in traffic daily in New York, the kids love it, we love it, it's great. Strandhill is a lovely village, it's got beautiful beaches, beautiful mountains, beautiful views and it's just breath-taking when the sun is out."
Uprooting your family can be difficult and challenging, but in this case it was done with several reasons in mind, not least of which was access to family supports and to an educational system that would cater for varying needs of Adrian's children.
"Schooling is going great. Where in new York we were struggling, I have a son who has special needs, and he was in a separate school from his younger brother. Moving back to Ireland we had the opportunity for the two of them to go to school together, in a smaller school where he could come along a lot more. That was one of the biggest plusses for moving home. He started school in September with his brother and he's thriving."
"Quality of life is the biggest one," he says. "Quality of life for our kids, and space for the kids to play, and having access to their cousins and their family, and create new friends that they'll have for the rest of their lives."
And with so much to see and do, they use that Great Outdoor space to create new family experiences. Coney Island in New York Harbour was the first stop for generations of emigrants arriving from Ireland into the United States. Local historians in Sligo will tell you that it took its name from an island of the same name located just minutes from where Adrian's new office is located in Strand Campus. They look forward to visiting there, as well as taking in the many tracks and trails that form part of their new West of Ireland lifestyle.
"It's enjoyable when you get home every evening, you know. The kids love it, especially when they are outside and the sun is out. And then we have our weekends and we try to get out and do as many of the mountains or the hikes and the trails that are in the area. It's great."