Bishop in call for more investment in rural communities
RURAL communities are ‘hurting’ due to cuts in local services and are ‘haemorrhaging’ young people, the Bishop of Killaloe has said.
Bishop Fintan Monahan lists the loss of ‘post offices, garda stations, parochial houses, rural GP services and local GAA teams’ in recent years.
Also lacking, he noted, are fast broadband connections, good educational services and infrastructure.
In addition, he said young people are leaving rural areas and this ‘steady trickle’ away from rural life is the fault of the ‘gradual stripping of services’ from small communities.
The future of rural communities does not need to be negative, but action needs to be taken, he insisted
‘Otherwise rural areas will become like an old house, no longer lived in, with the crows flying in and out through the empty windows.’
Writing the foreword to the Clare Yearbook, he called for a Government task force to be formed to make the most of the ‘embarrassment of riches’ that the landscape has to offer, encouraging tourism and creating jobs to entice young people to make their home in the countryside.
Bishop Monahan, whose diocese covers 58 parishes in Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Offaly and Laois, wrote: ‘While enjoying the experience of the annual Confirmation season of the diocese, I note with sadness the declining numbers of young people. Many rural places have just a handful of children where once there were many more.’
Expressing his fear of the longterm effect that movement towards cities or abroad will have, the bishop writes of the ‘beautiful and unique quality’ of rural life.
‘The quality of human relationship and friendship and knowing each other is certainly unique in rural areas!’
Despite the beauty of ‘Scattery Island, The Burren, Aillwee
Caves, Loop Head, Cliffs of Moher, Bridges of Ross, Holy Island, Inis Cealtra, Bunratty, to name but a few’, many are leaving in their droves to find jobs elsewhere.
‘Positive discrimination’ towards rural communities is needed to address the divide between urban and country residents.
There is no use in lamenting the decline of rural life, he said.
‘Instead of cursing the darkness, why not light a candle?’
Clare, he said, has ‘plenty to shout about’, with ‘warm hospitality, unique interest and talent in traditional music, not to mention sport.
‘Investing time, energy, resources into further effort to continue to promote and facilitate people to avail of such worthwhile attractions seems so obvious,’ he added. ‘In doing so, it will attract many people to visit in greater numbers, thereby providing jobs and employment for local people to flourish in situ.’
Shannon Airport is full again, he noted, with tourists returning to the county, and tourism must be tapped to boost rural economies.
‘Harnessing the potential of native, natural resources like the Wild Atlantic Way, marketing strategies for events like the Ryder Cup, campaigning to get events like the Irish Open golf back to Lahinch again soon, the Fleadh to Ennis, encouraging more success in Tidy Towns, can bring more success to the area.’
On a local level, the bishop noted his happiness that ‘planning in our capital town has been ongoing with the Ennis 2040 plan’, and that there are ‘sincere efforts being made to ensure the viability and business energy of the town to improve things apace with the changing world’.
Reflecting on the ‘precarious time’ of the pandemic, the bishop said it was inspiring to see how people worked together to help vulnerable members of rural communities.
‘It was nothing short of inspirational to listen to and witness the levels of care, kindness and heroic spirit demonstrated by so many good people, living Gospel values, whether they recognised it as such or not.’
Since 2016, the population of Ireland has risen by 7.5% to around 5.1 million, the highest number since 1851.
But the rural population, according to the 2022 census, has risen by only 2%.
‘Gradual stripping of services’