THE Ballinadee Bus seemed like the perfect idea when siblings Tomas, Anna and Rachel McCarthy decided that they needed a project to keep them busy during the lockdown.
The siblings came up with the novel idea of buying an old Dublin Bus and then coverting it into an Airbnb.
It was brother Thomas who first suggested the idea after he had visited some friends in Dingle before the Covid-19 restrictions.
‘They had a single decker bus that they had converted and I thought that’s fantastic – I want one,’ Thomas told The Southern Star.
‘So when I came home I told Anna and Rachel about it and we decided we’d all go together and buy a bus.’
However, a single decker bus was not going to be enough for the McCarthy siblings and their plans for an Airbnb on their parents’ farm in Ballinadee.
‘We decided that we wanted a double decker bus so that we could have more room to fit it out,’ Thomas said.
So, after calling every bus company they could find, Thomas managed to track down just what they were looking for – an old Dublin Bus double decker for sale at Ovens Coaches.
‘It was on sale for €4,000 but we got it down to €2,500, the engine is running and it’s in very good condition,’ Thomas said.
Now, the real work is underway as Thomas, Anna and Rachel get down to stripping out the old seats and putting their Airbnb designs together.
The trio decided to document their project with videos on Tik Tok and were delighted when one of their videos received over 1.5m views.
‘We’re going to leave as many of the original features in the bus as we can,’ Thomas said.
‘We have a site over looking a valley mapped out for the bus and when we are finished the Ballinadee Bus will have a large kitchen/dining/living area and enough room to sleep six people.’
You can follow the Ballindee Bus on Instagram.
