If you look at large-scale maps of Ireland 100 years ago, you will see little black rectangles representing homes occupied by rural dwellers scattered across the landscape in varying degrees of concentration. The population was not as concentrated geographically or as urbanised then as it is today.
Of course, that reflects a very different society, demography and economy. Large and extended families lived in often overcrowded and inadequate houses based on an agricultural existence -often at subsistence level. Transport was rudimentary for huge areas of the country. Local national schools – often two-roomed – were built in walking distance of the homes of the pupils, providing primary education to children who would mostly receive no further education.
Villages had post offices, sometimes small police stations, and smaller retail groceries. They also had smaller churches. Towns were often locations of fair days and local retail merchants’ businesses, banks, larger post offices, surgeries, secondary schools, and professional services. Parishes were real elements of social and community and sporting life in rural Ireland.
That world has changed dramatically in the ensuing century. We live in a very different world with declining birth rates and family size. The standard of rural housing has improved beyond recognition. Health services are dramatically improved. Education – primary and secondary – is available for all. Economic wealth has grown for all in rural Ireland. The private car has massively improved mobility for many rural dwellers. Access to goods and services has opened up in many ways.
But all is not well in rural Ireland. Post offices, banks, Garda stations, smaller primary schools, smaller retail shops, local legal services and courts, local GP services, and many other facets of rural life are shrinking away – to be centralised in larger towns.
There is a philosophy that we should increasingly live in concentrated population centres because such existence is more “sustainable” ergonomically, economically and socially. This notion is based on the idea that it is more sustainable to live within a short walk or bike ride of daily activity centres and services. And there is some force in such an approach to urban planning and development.
But there is another side to the story that is increasingly clamouring to be heard. The other view is that many people do not want to be forced by economic and planning policy to move into towns. Yes, rural existence involves greater transport costs. But cars – however powered – are a hugely liberating aspect of social existence. They are not the evil environmental dangers made out by some.
The other view is that there is no good reason why people should not be able to live in rural locations if that is their choice. With the electronic revolution, there is no reason why many cannot work from home. There is no need to reduce the proportion of people living rurally. Arguments about septic tank pollution can be countered by simple technological improvements. Why should it be impossible or very difficult for family members to build on family land or for people who want to build a one-off home in a rural community to do so?
With a rapidly expanding national population why should less people live in rural Ireland just because small farming is no longer the dominant economic activity there? Why should rural GAA clubs struggle to find young players? Why should all those little black rectangles representing family homes disappear from modern large scale maps of rural Ireland.
Why should young people in rural Ireland find it impossible to compete with urban dwellers buying up scarce housing stock for second or holiday homes? Why cannot they buy a site at a reasonable cost to live in or near the community in which they were raised and within the community of their home place? Why cannot they aspire to live near their parents and friends?
Of course, there are economic cost implications in a scattered pattern of rural living. But there are grave economic and social costs to urban existence as well. There is a big danger, I feel, in imposing on Ireland a rigid centrally controlled planning and development orthodoxy that runs counter to our history, our values and our aspirations. The Office of the Planning Regulator now sadly enthroned and enshrined in the massive Planning and Development Act 2024 is neither infallible nor omniscient
It is time for this national debate to re-ignite. Rural Ireland is not merely engaged in some inevitable transformation; in many ways it is dying or struggling to survive.
Nor is the debate one of binary choice. Allowing rural homebuilding is not an alternative to urban renewal and liveable cities and towns. Large-scale house builders in our cities and towns are in a different market economy space from one-off home builders in rural Ireland.
Balanced regional development means more than plonking cities here and there. There are other balances in play, as Fianna Fáil for one has signalled.