Marianne O'Malley had no choice but to move out of Dublin when her son Eoin turned 18, because suitable residential places for a severely physically disabled teenager were impossible to find in the capital.
Eighteen months on, she's running a thriving B& in Tinahely, Eoin is "deliriously happy" at KARE's Lawlor Centre in Baltinglass and a whole new circle of friends have taken the newcomers under its wing.
"Eoin wouldn't have got the same service in Dublin and that was the bottom line when I was agonising over the decision," says Marianne. "For me to have a life, Eoin's life has to be good. He's working in the garden centre there and he's fallen in love with the whole set-up - he's very joyous and everybody responds to him. He's got a place for life there now."
The need to live in the catchment area of the Baltinglass centre defined Marianne's search for a new home. The January before last, she bought a map, loaded up with a flask and criss-crossed West Wicklow looking out for "For Sale" signs.
One wet January evening, when they drove down to Tinahely Arts Centre to see a play staged by people with disabilities, she noticed that Orchard House, a local B&, was for sale.
"I said no way. Then I thought I'd have a look and three months later I had it. I bought the B& for £170,000 and got £290,000 for our house in Dun Laoghaire, so I had peace of mind. Because I was moving here by myself with a disabled child, I thought I'd get a short bridging loan to get the house up and running. I could have hired the Rolls Royce of removal companies to do the job with what the loan cost!"
Two days after they moved in, the first guests arrived and - as Tinahely is a popular hill-walking centre - business has been brisk. During the worst of the foot and mouth crisis, a local recruitment agency used Orchard House as temporary accommodation for South African professionals migrating to Ireland, so there was only a brief dip in income.
"The house was fine when we moved in because I'd bought some of the furniture from the previous owner. The kitchen was chaos though. I remember trying to make breakfast while vaulting over tea-chests and I couldn't find the teapot."
As the name suggests, there is an orchard to the side of the house, sown with wildflowers when they moved in. The best aspect was a self-contained wing behind the kitchen, on one level for Eoin's wheelchair and with a couple of spare bedrooms for visiting friends.
With money left over from the sale of the Dun Laoghaire house, Marianne installed a bathroom in each of the four guest bedrooms threw out the old-fashioned patterned carpets and created a natural look. They built a wheelchair ramp, enabling Eoin to drive around to the back door.
Most of Marianne's guests have been hill-walkers and long conversations about life over tea in the kitchen are her best memories, she says.
"You meet them at the front door and it's a magical journey over the next 24 hours. Because they're in your home, there's an intimacy. Walkers are people in tune. You look at their faces and you see a vibrancy, with no protective edge."
Marianne's only bad experience so far was a pair of guests who drove off without paying. Still in her apron, she jumped into her car, caught up with them four miles from the town and forced them to pay up.
The B & B has helped to integrate Marianne and Eoin into the town. The people have mellowed since they got to know the family and now they are included in everything. "Eoin thinks he runs the town", laughs Marianne.
"There's a fantastic women's network here. Eleven of us did the pottery trail in Kilkenny and we were firm friends by the end of it. There's such a sense of community. The Tinahely show is going ahead this year on August bank holiday weekend. Only eight weeks to go, so the whole county's rallying round. Every meeting entails a visit to Murphy's pub afterwards.
"Then there's a book club and a fantastic arts centre in the Courthouse. It's the most vibrant creative centre for music and visual arts. Last week we had a film of the Buena Vista Social Club and a Cuban dance teacher came down to teach us to salsa."
Marianne agrees she was lucky there were no other children or a husband with a career to take into account when she decided to move to Wicklow.
Even so, it was a huge step to give up a fun job in PR to bury herself in the countryside. Working as events manager on the St Patrick's Festival and helping with the Beckett Film Festival is good training for running a B&, she says.
"It's the same thing on a different scale. When you've organised a reception for 400 in Dublin Castle, breakfast for four in the diningroom is no problem.
"I've fallen in love with a man in Tullow with a laundry service", she laughs, "Once a week, he brings me a pile of freshly laundered linen. Who wouldn't love that? My life has changed since I discovered him."
Splashing out on a new computer with e-mail access means Marianne is not cut off from her old life. Her biggest problem is keeping her Dublin friends away. "They're costing me beds!"
A keen drama fan, she has written theatre reviews for The Stage and hopes to write more next winter when the B& slows down. "Women have so much to say and are rarely heard. Eoin has brought me on a path that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams."
