Growing number of people learning to survive 'off grid', according to survival instructor

Snow blankets the village of Killeshin, Co Laois, on January 5 this year.  The recent snow storm led to tens of thousands of homes being without power.

There is a growing number of ordinary men and women learning how to survive ‘off grid’, according to one of Ireland’s leading survival instructors.

As the country wakes up to Storm Éowyn today, Shayne Phelan, owner of Eagle Ridge Survival, said he has noticed a marked increase in the number of ordinary people wanting to develop survival skills, especially women.

He said demand for survivalist skills is being partly driven by a rise in the number, and severity, of storms now hitting the country.

Ireland’s recent snow storm, for example, led to tens of thousands of homes being left without power. A number of rural communities were almost completely cut off after their landline or mobile connections were lost.

Worst affected were those households whose water supply comes from their own well. Once the electricity lines were damaged, they were left with no power to drive the water pump to bring water to the surface and then into their house.

Shayne Phelan, the survival instructor Eagle Ridge Survival. Photo: Facebook

Mr Phelan, who is based in Bray, Co Wicklow, said: “Up to and during covid, I would mostly teach skills to people who genuinely believed bad things were going to happen and that they needed to be able to survive on their own for very long periods of time.

“But while the number of people attending my monthly courses hasn’t changed much, the type of people attending has.

“For a start, there is a growing number of men and women coming who would not be terribly interested in living in the wild and off-grid.

“The women are less gung-ho than many of the men who I would train, and the men are not Rambo types who want to survive an apocalyptic event.

“They are now predominantly ordinary people who want to understand the basics needed to survive being off-grid due to the growing number of storms hitting Ireland.

“They want to be able to confidently deal with the power being off for anything from a day up to a week,” he said.

According to Mr Phelan, the principles of surviving in the wild are the same as those you would need to survive indoors, and in your own environment without power.

“It is not gadgets that will get you through situations like this. It’s simple things like slowing down, conserving calories and being your own emergency service," he said.

Christine McNally, who owns and runs the specialist portable power station supplier Off Grid Ireland, has noticed a change in her customers too.

She said: “The type of people coming to us now is changing.

“When we started, it was film crews who needed battery packs and campers and it was pretty seasonal.

“Then we started to see a lot of home workers during and after covid, and business is now steady throughout the year.”

When the company started in 2021, there was a lot of scaremongering about power cuts.

“We told people to save their money and not buy an expensive unit for the chances of one or two hours of a power cut, and told them they would be better off to buy a few candles,” she said.

Eagle Ridge Survival owner Shayne Phelan said more and more 'ordinary' people are attending his classes as recent extreme weather affected electricity supply across the country. Picture: Facebook

“Fast forward to today and now it’s completely changed because there’s so many power cuts.

“We are seeing more and more ordinary people wanting something to tide them over and especially in the last few weeks with all of the power cuts because of the snow.

“If you’re in an area where the ESB can’t get to and you’ve got a little unit that you can power a light and even your WiFi, it can make a massive difference.”

Her biggest advice for anybody caught without power who invests in one of her battery packs? 

“Ditch the kettle and hairdryer until the power comes back on,” she said.

“They are a huge drain no matter how powerful your battery pack is.”

She also said people need to be realistic and realise they can’t have everything they want to be powered by batteries when they are caught in a power cut.

“People need to manage their expectations, and understand exactly what they need.”

Firms selling generators are also reporting that they have noticed a big jump in sales.

Limerick-based Shanahan Power, which predominantly provides generators for big businesses all around the country, is now increasingly being contacted by homeowners.

Owner Diarmuid Shanahan told the Irish Examiner: “We would predominantly cater for businesses.

“But in the last few years, we are increasingly catering for ordinary people who want a backup for their fridges, their freezers, their heating systems and their gadgets.

“While businesses tend to be better organised, we find ourselves being inundated by calls from homeowners in the few days before a storm looking to buy a generator.”

He added: “I would estimate my business to homeowners has gone up by between 15% to 20% in the last one to two years.”

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