Last year, when Emma O’Hagan and her partner, Kevin O’Reilly, returned from travelling round Europe in a van, they wanted to live together but knew they wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage and would struggle to rent given the housing crisis.
Their solution was to build a tiny home. Not just any tiny home, though, but an open-plan one with a kitchen/living area, a loft bedroom and a separate bathroom. And they have managed to build it for the same price many would pay for a car — €27,000. What’s more it is completely off-grid, which means no energy bills. “That was important to us,” says O’Hagan, from Leitrim, who works as a rural recreational officer. O’Reilly, from Meath, was a solicitor and now works as
