Hugh Wallace: We must all be champions of Ireland’s great rural revival

Covid-19 merely speeded up the inevitable move away from urban living, but can the government deliver on its promise of dynamic rural development?

Clonakilty in Co Cork: the Chamber of Commerce and the local council have been active in repositioning this rural hinterland as a cosmopolitan, friendly seaside resort

Our Rural Future: 128 pages of lofty ideas, ambitions, no stone unturned, no challenge too much and all in five years. I feel like I’m watching Monty Python‘s Life of Brian, and that great line: “Apart from the aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education and the wine . . . What have the Romans ever done for us?”

After 50 years of rural neglect, this visionary document, ‘Our Rural Future: Government’s blueprint to transform rural ...