The Irish Times view on rural Ireland: a focused strategy is needed
As the tourism season winds down and the nights draw in, the inhabitants of rural Ireland once again confront the downside of being one of the most dispersed communities in Europe. In broad terms rural Ireland is relatively densely populated, particularly when compared to the likes of Finland or Sweden. But its denizens are far more widely spread out as a consequence of historic settlement patterns which eschewed towns and villages for isolated homesteads. This may account for some of the attractiveness of the Irish countryside but the consequences in terms of the provision of services, connectivity and community cohesion are obvious. Our Rural Future, Rural Development Policy 2026-2031, the five-year strategy launched by the Government this week, aims to address these deficits by building on the previous plan, which bore the same name and ran from 2021 to 2025. Taoiseach Micheál Martin credited the previous plan, in part at…