My Journey

I'm based on the Naas Road near Inchicore and it takes me under an hour to get in from Portlaoise in the mornings. Just a little over that in the evening. When I lived in Kilcoole, it would sometimes take an hour and a half to drive the 20 miles to the city.

The traffic is heavy but moving all the time. The only drawback is that it causes chaos if there is an accident on that road. Coming up in the morning, the traffic moves all the way to Newlands Cross, then it gets a bit heavy. Once past the Red Cow round-about, it quickens up. One of the reasons I moved down here was the travel time. I'm national sales manager for a company, so access to the rest of the country is important. I'm away a lot and my wife's sister lives here, so, for personal support, the move was a good idea. Our son was doing very well in the small school in Kilcoole, but we got him into a school close to The Heath where we bought a new house. We sold our detached bungalow in Kilcoole for £200,000 and bought a big four-bedroom detached house in Portlaoise for £135,000.

With a family, it made sense to move as far from the rat race as possible. From the point of view of my career the further I can get away from that and still have easy access the better. Moving closer to Dublin just wasn't an option.

In an interview with Kate McMorrow