Hi Snowflake,
I know noone has posted to here for ages but I've just found this site and if your still out there you have my sympathies.
I came back to ireland from UK with intention to build ecofriendly sustainable log/timber home (pretty straightforward in UK).
I am at the point of total exhaustion having spent months and months and months pointlessly searching for sites in roscommon/westmeath and getting nothing but stupid prices for poxy scraps of useless bog in the back of beyond.
Land in ireland is way, way, way overpriced and planning attitudes and working practices (5hour lunch breaks, total inability to respond to phone or e-mail or letter, incompetence, laziness, couldn't give a damn attitudes etc, etc,etc) are woefully behind the times for a modern EU state.
Ireland might be a more realistic option for non-developer self builders in a decade or so when the greed driven massively over the top prices have been forced down by the inevitable negative equity cycle which ireland thought it would escape forever (why should ireland be different to rest of world?).
Till then UK, France, east europe much better options, not much good if you're Irish and just want to live at home without being ripped off, but there you have it - too much greed here and not enough commonsense or well paid jobs to pay for it!
Good luck to you anyway, hope you find somewhere even if not in ireland
