By Paddy Clancy

IRELAND’S most unusual commuter, Seamus Boyle, is planning to launch his own ferry company so others can be like him and live on their island home and still travel daily to work on the mainland.

Boyle makes a 132-mile return journey to work every day by jeep, boat and car.

The 34-year-old Army private lives on Arranmore Island off the Donegal coast and works as a garage fitter 66 miles away at Finner Camp near Bundoran.

He drives a mile in a 1991 jeep from his home to the pier on Arranmore, transfers to a 20-foot Yamaha boat and chugs four miles across the sea with waves sometimes 10 feet high. After tying up at Burtonport he transfers to a car for the remainder of the journey along some of the worst roads in Ireland.

He’s at work 90 minutes after leaving home, then he does it all over again every evening after his day’s work, returning home about 6:30 p.m. to wife Louise and their two children who are both under three years of age.

“Some people think I’m mad, but to be honest I think I’m the happiest man in Ireland,” Boyle said.

He’s the only person among the 800 islanders who commutes daily to work on the mainland. Others live there during the week and return to their island homes at weekends.

There is an island ferry, but the first sailing isn’t until 9 a.m.

“That’s not an awful lot of use to people who have to get to work,” For eight years he lived on the mainland but he wasn’t happy. “The call of home was always there,” he said.

Three years ago he took time out from the Army and built a home for his family back on Arranmore. Now he is planning his own ferry service so other islanders who long for home can live there and still work on the mainland.

He has ordered a new $265,000 boat and is in the process of negotiating state grants to help launch his own ferry service. He plans to have it in operation in June.

“I have a commitment from a number of people who say they will move back to the island if they can leave in time for work every morning and be guaranteed a boat back to the island in the evening,” he says.