Leitrim's greener pastures

A New Life: Seán Conlan, electrical engineer turned leader of an ecotourism project, speaks to Sylvia Thompson

Looking back over 57-year-old Seán Conlan's life to date, it could be said that he has had several new lives - growing up in the heart of Dublin city, studying engineering at University College Dublin, working briefly as a seismologist in west Africa and returning home to work as an electrical engineer for the German plant machinery company, Liebherr, in Co Kerry for 10 years.

There then followed another 10 years working as a product manager for the American multinational company, Raychem, in Paris, getting married and raising a family with his Kerry-born wife, Bríd, in a village outside the French capital.

Next came four years working in quality management for the same company in Belgium and then, in 1994, a move back to his native Dublin to run Excellence Ireland, the national quality association.

However, it was his most recent move which has turned out to be the most significant, as he says it was the first time he moved "to a place for the life it offered rather than because of my career".

In 2003 Conlan left his job as chief executive of Excellence Ireland, sold the family home in Blackrock, Co Dublin, and moved with his wife and Anna and Kevin, the younger two of their four children (Morgan and Iseult, the other two, remained in Dublin to study) to their holiday home in Co Leitrim.

Almost a year later he applied for and got the job as chief executive of The Green Box, Ireland's most ambitious ecotourism project to date.

"Our love story with Leitrim started in 1995 when we began to take family holidays in Ireland for the first time and came to the Joe Mooney Summer School in Drumshanbo.

"We had discovered Irish traditional music in France. I play the fiddle, Bríd plays the concertina and the children all play instruments, and when we came to the summer school, we loved it. We ended up coming back several times before buying a house in Dromahair in 1997.

"Leitrim is a unique place. With the border so close, economic activity declined. People left [the population dropped from 32,000 in the early 1960s to 22,000 in the mid-1990s] and there was a kind of melancholy about the place. But, people - foreigners first and later Irish people - have also been moving into Leitrim since the 1960s.

"Now, there's a community of writers, artists, filmmakers, sculptors, sustainable builders and organic growers.

"We had been looking at our lives in Dublin and wondering about the future.

"Another watershed for me was that I have always had slightly high blood pressure and one day when I went for a routine medical check-up, I discovered it had risen significantly. I was subsequently put on a 24-hour monitor and advised to go on medication as I'm not overweight for my age.

"My daughter, Anna, who was 14 at the time, said 'Dad, you shouldn't go on medication, you should change your lifestyle'.

"Bríd and I talked about moving for a long time before finally making the decision to sell our house in Dublin, rent a flat for the two older children. Then, she said to me, 'Why don't you take a year off to find yourself?' So I did," Conlan says.

"I was embarking on a year in which I was in theory doing nothing but which turned out to be one of the busiest years of my life.

"I did courses at the Irish Organic Centre and the Living Architecture Centre. I went to concerts - my wife says I went to more cultural events in a couple of months here than in the previous five years in Dublin. I bought a tractor. I played music. I started to train the girls' team in GAA."

Then, towards the end of this 'year off', the job for a chief executive for the Green Box was advertised. Conlan got the job and took up the position last September.

Now, with an office in Manorhamilton, he is immersing himself in short and long-term planning for the project.

"The Green Box - which spans Leitrim, parts of Cavan and Fermanagh - is a unique opportunity to offer people experiential learning holidays in which they can appreciate the cultural and geographical diversity while at the same time sustaining the people in the community and enhancing the environment," explains Conlan.

The concept of ecotourism is not new but using it as a way to encourage border communities value their past, present and future is a challenging task.

Conlan's years abroad have given him a strong sense of his Irish identity.

He learnt Irish traditional music in France and spoke Irish at home as their children attended local schools in France and Belgium.

His years working in quality management have helped him understand that ethics and spirituality have a place in business.

In his new role, how he now merges these personal and professional spheres of knowledge will play a significant part in the future of tourism in the north-west of Ireland.

See www.greenbox.ie