The last time I blogged about a Rural Lifestyle creator, I said that I would make it a habit to point out one person every month who has made a life and career in this sector. While I can pump out monthly content like a factory, it would not feel genuine if I didn’t connect to the content by spending a few weeks or months dissecting it. Last year I found another blogger, YouTuber, author, and influencer who falls within the category I call the Rural Lifestyle expert. A Rural Lifestyle blogger is a term I thought would fit many of the creators I enjoy watching. They all seem to live-in or create a world around an idea that takes viewers back to a time of rustic simplicity. These people are at home in elements that highlight nature and simple living while turning away from excess, waste, the destruction of the environment, and living a high-stress life. For me, a Rural Lifestyle content creator helps usher in a new way of thinking that is sustainability-focused by reaching back into the past for tools that they actively balance with modernity to help set a more natural rhythm to life.
This blog is dedicated to looking at the work of Niamh Traynor, the owner, and creator of Fairyland Cottage. If I could describe the Fairyland Cottage channel, I would say that it is comforting, inspirational, and captures simple living at its best. The channel is based on a renewed way of living removed from big city life, fast-paced careers, and the ever-growing need for more. Set to the backdrop of Ireland, our host ritualistically illustrated various ways to create our own environmentally friendly homemade products. The Fairyland Cottage also touches on my favorite topic: food as Nimah makes deliciously simple recipes and do-it-yourself products that produce zero waste. This channel has been around since 2012, but the oldest videos go as far back as 2016. The production and effort put into making each video are well throughout in a way that makes me believe that this channel has been sitting dormant for a while, just waiting on the right place and time to spur into action.
As I come across similar channels, I am noticing a growing group of people who want to break away from the norm to live an authentic life that goes with the flow of nature instead of against it. After stumbling upon Liziqi’s channel back in 2018, I started seeing more of these rural lifestyles depicted in a variety of ways. While some had to leave the city to forge the life they wanted, I have seen many others take the main ideas that Fairyland Cottage promotes and apply them to their current circumstances.
Discovering channels and bloggers such as Fairyland Cottage, I started to wonder what has caused this enormous shift towards minimalism and living a sustainable lifestyle. For me it seems like a very weighted topic that just isn’t about our concern for the environment. I view minimalism as a way of life that affects a person every waking moment, what they wear, how they decorate their homes, where they live, what activities they engage in, and who they choose to support. Perhaps many years from now, when generations light-years ahead of us look back to this period, they will be able to spot a singular influence for this movement. For me, it was a combination of influences such as Greta Thunberg and her band of young activists, the 2016 Netflix documentary called minimalism, Maria Kondo, Japandi design, Frank Philip Stella, Jenny & David Mustards, and a host of other events and people who have shaped the way I am now viewing the world.
At one time, I used to think that minimalism was more about an artistic expression or how an artist envisioned the world. Now I am learning that it can also encompass a lifestyle that translates into a particular way of living, dressing, and behaving. A way of existing that seems to touch every corner of a person’s life once they decide to take it seriously. While I haven’t committed myself like Niamh (Fairyland Cottage), influencers such as she have started forcing me to do a lot of self-reflection. Slowly I am easing out of a world that is high pressure and stress, demanding that education and money be my only goal that feeds my ego. I am allowing the slow nagging realization of time and the moments with myself to guide me to my own Fairyland Cottage.
For more information about Fairyland Cottage click the link and check out her YouTube channel.
Fairyland CottagYouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOOoeFFt641fiLUghzE9CHg
Fairyland Cottag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fairylandcottage/
Fairyland CottagWebsite: https://www.fairylandcottage.com/
If you are even more curious to learn more about Niamh Traynor and her work, I recently discovered a blog called Yin.Zen.Vegan.Thrive , by SuZen | Susan Ni Rahilly . The Yin.Zen.Vegan.Thrive blog features an interview with Niamh Traynor titled “Sustainability: Simple Living and the “Fairyland Cottage” Story by Rose Mason. It is a lovely interview that touches on how Niamh was inspired to live a more sustainable and slow life. CHECK IT OUT! For more content by SuZen I listed her various creator platforms. She is also a creator I shall be watching!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SusanNiRahilly/about
Below is her Pinterest
Mauby Tales & Travel 