Half island on Shannon

WANT to get away from the doom and gloom, but can’t afford a sun-kissed Caribbean island retreat? Try Canon Island, in the Shannon Estuary.

About the only thing missing from this island retreat is tax-free status, but you have 112 acres of your own with self-sufficiency and fishing to play around withYou might just escape the increasingly draconian tax nets snaring mainland Ireland.

Canon Island is a mile off the Co Clare mainland, about four miles west of Shannon airport’s runways.

Co Clare estate agent John Casey is selling a bit less than half of this 270-acre island, with the upper half in another individual’s private ownership. Looking at the map, Canon Island appears to resemble an elongated North and South America continent. His portion for sale is ‘South America,’ up as far as Texas. See? That’s how proprietorial one gets when faced with the prospect of land, and lots of it.

Aiming for a recession-avoiding Land Rush, Mr Casey prices the 112 acres, with old dwelling and buildings (plus a 50% share of 50 acres of ) at €495,000.

The land was good once, but is now overgrown with scrub, whitethorn and blackthorn, yet has tantalising fertile patches.

In euphemistic terms, Mr Casey says it has been ‘non-intensively farmed’ — while a rusting tractor bears silent testimony to that fact.

A bit of sleeves rolled up (and a box of matches) for reclamation work would provide ground for a livelihood and livestock, An enterprising DIYer can also get stuck into doing up the 200-year-old original stone dwelling.

There’s a further 25’ by 16’ stone outbuilding, also slate roofed.

For recession avoiders, there’s a natural spring for water, so you won’t have to pay next year’s planned water metering charges.

So, for roughly half of a private island, (the 1901 Census shows the island supported 24 inhabitants)just a mile off the mainland and four miles from a transatlantic airport, you’ll even get loose change from half a million euros to buy a boat to beat an escape from economic woes.