Thanks Crecenter, I appreciate the reply. My view is that I could just as easily be going for a job in Dublin and end up commuting for well over an hour each way to it from God knows where.
Unfortuately the niche areas both myself (corp finance) and my girlfriend (regional journalism) wish to work in; coupled with the fact that we want to live in the West/Midlands region means we don't have that much choice until we've built up experience.
We are both at the start of our working lives and at least one of us, if not both will undoubtably change jobs in the next few years. So the commute I outlined above should fall with time (I would'nt even consider a commute any longer than an hour or so). Our incomes should approx. double accross the first 3yrs (as training related pay increases kick in).
Unfortuately the petrol cost will be sorest at the start when wages are low... but hopefully we'll be able to get by until our wages rise. As I pointed out, we are both very career orientated and have great prospects, so we are relatively happy to commit to commutes for the medium term (in principal anyways... thats why I started this thread... to see opinions).
Anyone else have comments on that lenght commute, on the roads or anything else? Is there any other locations between sligo and athlone worth considering... ruled out Tulsk, Elphin and Boyle as they are... well Carrick is nicer! Have I missed anywhere else?
Oh, and anyone know where to get a list of car fuel efficencys for models from 1997-2001? Or even a few suggestions about what models from those years were particularly frugle