Good life Hunt for an ideal society ends in Irish town by the sea

Philosophy has long debated the concept of the good life and whether such an exalted state exists but the reality turns out to be not so elusive: you drive north from Dublin on the M1, turn right on to the R132, take another right at Blake's Cross and keep going until you reach the sea.

- Rory Carroll

Then, if you have any sense, you stay put forever because you are in Skerries.

This town of 11,000 people on Ireland's east coast does not look remarkable. There is a high street, a harbour, a library, a community centre, a supermarket, cafes, pubs, sports pitches. Residents walk their dogs, play bingo, sit on benches.

Yet amid the ordinariness there is, apparently, an answer to a riddle pondered by Aristotle, Kant and Hegel: the good life? It's right here. Or at least The Good Enough Life. That is the title of a new book by Daniel Miller, an anthropology professor at University College London, who spent 16 months in Skerries studying daily life and came to a startling conclusion: "It is hard to find another currently existing society that is demonstrably better."

Miller set out to compare the writings of philosophers on virtue and happiness with fieldwork ethnography and ended up stumbling into what he considers an exemplary community.