Couple who moved to Blasket Islands reveal mystery illness was cured by lack of stress

Joseph Loftus

‘I was burnt out, my body was giving stress signals’

A couple who quit the city life in London to relocate to the Blasket Islands have revealed how a mystery illness simply disappeared due to a lack of stress in their new location.

Emily Campbell, who is originally from Cork, and her boyfriend Daniel Reagan, appeared on Ben Fogle’s New Lives In The Wild last week, and spoke about their life on the island.

The couple temporarily moved to the Blasket Islands off Co. Kerry to run a coffee shop and accommodation.

The couple said that life on the island is extremely hard, with no electricity or hot water.

But there were many positives

Despite the island’s eternal challenges, the couple found there were a lot of unexpected rewards.

Ms Campbell said that her new life had been less “emotionally draining than before” adding: “I was burnt out, my body was giving stress signals”.

While working as a children’s nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Ms Campbell said that stress had caused her eyes to turn red and sore with the skin around them flaking off.

Despite being seen by doctors and specialists, none were able to diagnose the condition. However after moving to the Blaskets, the condition miraculously disappeared.

While the couple have since left the island, Ms Campbell said that it would be her ultimate dream to live there again and to grow her own food, however the harsh winter conditions make it very difficult.

The couple found an advert for a job on the island

Ms Campbell and Mr Reagan first met on the London Underground late at night before quickly falling in love.

Soon after Ms Campbell saw an advert for a job on the Great Blaskets before applying and beating thousands of applicants in her bid to run the cafe and three holiday lodges.

Before making the big move, the couple stocked up on hundreds of cans of food and revealed that they more often than not ate “baked beans for dinner” if they couldn’t get food from the mainland.

After October the island becomes too cold to live on and since filming the television show, the couple have left Great Blasket to travel around Indonesia.

The Blaskets were inhabited for centuries by an Irish speaking community of 100-150 people who didn’t have money but instead bartered for goods and followed a traditional way of farming and fishing for food.

However in the 1950s, the final 20 or so inhabitants had to leave the island as emergency services were unable to access them in bad weather.

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