Rundale

Criostóir King

View of the Shannon Estuary. Source: author.

The fuel protests of Spring 2026 sparked a national debate on the contribution of “rural Ireland” to the national economy. Most notably, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was heavily criticised for dismissing concerns that rural Ireland’s contribution is underappreciated, arguing instead that “we’re [urban dwellers] the ones paying all the bills and you’re the ones in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don’t get.” 

While this comment was roundly condemned for its condescending and misguided attitude, there was one important truth to it: that economic development in Ireland has for decades been heavily concentrated in urban areas, especially around Dublin. What Varadkar misses, though, is that this uneven development does not privilege rural areas. Instead, it is the result of consistent policy decisions and represents a symptom of Ireland’s economic dependency.

Bar some notable exceptions, much of the public debate around the fuel protests was stuck within a simplistic framing of “rural Ireland” as homogenous and driven by regressive interests. One op-ed in the Irish Times during the protests went so far as to argue that our current government is the most “culchie” we have ever had, and that the state is beholden to the interests of rural Ireland, holding us back from pursuing the “green agenda”. 

We need to move beyond such clichés and binaries, and instead engage with the political economy of rural Ireland to understand uneven development and its consequences for the countryside. History is a good place to start. 

The Rural Economy: A Story of Unresolved Underdevelopment

Geographically uneven economic development on a world scale is an inherent characteristic of imperialism, whereby industrial growth in core states is made possible by resource and value drain from the peripheries. Relationships of dependency emerge when the economic development of the peripheries and semi-peripheries is limited by the interests of the core. As a former British colony, Ireland’s economic development was dictated by the needs of British capitalism for centuries, meaning industrialisation was limited and its main role was as a supplier of cheap agricultural products and cheap labour for British industry. Today, it functions as a semi-periphery in the world-system, with an economy heavily dependent on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and functioning as a tax haven allowing huge profit repatriation to the core.

This also has consequences for internally uneven development. At the moment of southern independence, Ireland’s role as a supplier of cheap food to Britain had created a geographically uneven agricultural system while the little manufacturing industry that existed was limited to cities or cut off through partition. After ten years of laissez-faire economic policy under Cumann na nGaedheal, Fianna Fáil – put in power by popular land struggles and rural movements – prioritised the alleviation of rural poverty and reducing emigration from the countryside between 1933 and the late 1950s. 

However, the Irish economy remained heavily dependent on Britain during this time. Despite attempts to develop indigenous industry and resources, particularly in rural areas, the long-term trends of declining agricultural employment and emigration from the countryside persisted. The idea that the small family farm could form the economic basis of rural society was gradually abandoned in favour of policy promoting intensive livestock farming for the export-oriented food processing industry.

And so, the state began to look for ways to diversify the rural economy. It is well documented that Ireland opened up to foreign investment in the late 1950s. Less frequently discussed are the regional implications of this. 

As foreign industry started to arrive in the 1960s, there was an informal but relatively successful policy of regional dispersal. This was formalised in the 1970s when the IDA took an active role in the purchasing of sites, construction of advance factories and offering especially lucrative grants in priority areas, mainly in the West. The dispersal of manufacturing industry helped to absorb underemployed labour from agriculture.            

Despite being advised to concentrate incoming industry in a small number of growth centres for efficiency, the government continued to pursue the social benefits of regional distribution. However, with the onset of the 1980s recession, dispersal of industry became untenable and was eventually abandoned. The recovery of foreign investment towards the end of the 1980s saw investment from higher value-added businesses concentrated in urban areas, especially the Greater Dublin Area. 

So, what was to happen with the rural economy? The European Commission’s 1988 report “The Future of Rural Society” described Europe’s rural areas as “not only places where people live and work, for at the same time they have vital functions for society as a whole”, emphasising their “increasingly important role as the most popular location for relaxation and leisure.” 

Since then, there has been little effort to combat the polarising tendencies of dependent development. Since the 1980s, rural development policy – outside of intensifying agricultural production – has been reduced to small-scale community funding schemes (e.g. LEADER), largely funnelled into tourism activities. The benefits of this development have been unevenly felt.

Today, tourism is often lauded as a solution to rural economic problems. Employment in agriculture continues to declineas the agri-industry is oriented around the interests of (mainly Irish-owned) multinational corporations. Meanwhile, rural land is increasingly sought after for economic activities that bring little employment to rural populations in forestry, mining and renewable energy. Rural Ireland remains stuck in a model of economic development constrained by relations of economic dependency, though with an increasingly green hue.

Contemporary “Green” Rural Development in County Clare

The effects of this dependent model of development are felt along the west coast of Clare, where I grew up and where I have been conducting research for the past year and a half. 

Though places like Ennis and Shannon are home to growing populations and foreign industries, remote parts of the county are underserved in basic infrastructure and service provision, and there is a lack of planning for what a “just transition” could look like there. Places like the Loop Head Peninsula in West Clare and parts of the Burren in North Clare are experiencing severe depopulation. The closing of primary schools, amalgamation of GAA clubs and a lack of services for vulnerable people are among key concerns for these rural communities. 

Clare has experienced deindustrialisation and failed attempts at industrialisation. Attempts by Shannon Development in the 1980s to open indigenous industry in small towns, such as Kilkee and Ballyvaughan, were largely unsuccessful. Moneypoint power station, which brought economic prosperity – though unevenly distributed – to West Clare in the 1980s, has significantly reduced employment, while plans to turn it into a “green energy hub” are slow to materialise. Today, manufacturing industry outside of Ennis and Shannon is extremely limited. Agricultural employment, like elsewhere in the West, is in decline. The average age of farmers is increasing and the majority cannot earn a full-time living from farming. 

Tourism, then, is posited in policy as “a driver for economic development and rural diversification”, and community development activity is often geared towards tourism development. However, employment in tourism is mostly poorly paid and seasonal, the proliferation of holiday homes has made it nearly impossible to find housing in places like Kilkee, and public infrastructure like roads and wastewater treatment facilities are often insufficient for large visitor numbers. 

Clare’s is the only County Council in the country with a dedicated Tourism Department and it directly operates seven large tourism attractions in the county, including the state’s second most visited attraction (the Cliffs of Moher). The centrality of tourism to Clare’s economy is not only the result of its natural competitive advantage in the sector, but also of deliberate government policies such as tax incentives for coastal holiday home construction or the Wild Atlantic Way initiative. Increasingly, tourism in Clare is marketed through the lens of eco-tourism: a form of sustainable development. Initiatives from local business and community groups such as the Burren Ecotourism Network and Loop Head Tourismhave been central in moving tourism in this direction, along with council-led projects like certification of the county as a “sustainable tourism destination”. However, eco-tourism does not address the structure of the local economy: who owns what and who benefits from it. 

Beyond sustainable tourism, there are other ways in which rural Clare fits into the emerging “green” economy. Sparsely populated uplands and boglands in West and East Clare are prime locations for the development of wind energy, though such developments are highly contested. While the ecologically sensitive landscapes of the Burren are not suitable for large energy infrastructures, they are important targets in nature preservation and restoration. Initiatives such as the Burren Programme promoted traditional farming practices to improve livelihoods while enhancing biodiversity, but do not intervene in the structure of the farming economy. 

Meanwhile, the state is currently planning two significant infrastructural projects in Clare: an LNG terminal in Cahercon on the Shannon Estuary and a water pipeline from Lough Derg to Dublin. Though the LNG facility will supposedly be temporary and for “emergency” use only – a heavily contested claim – such projects cannot be seen outside of the context of increasing energy and water demand in Dublin and surrounding areas. Despite claims about local community funds and job creation, such projects are unlikely to generate much positive economic development in their host areas. 

The power of large infrastructural developments to capture imaginations is, however,  still significant in places like West Clare, which experienced the economic impacts of Moneypoint from the 1980s. Though there is some pretence that an LNG terminal may create long-term employment, the minds of politicians and state officials quickly turn again to tourism when thinking about potential long-term economic benefits. A recent council proposal aimed to attract cruise ships to Moneypoint, and Gas Networks Ireland has suggested that, after the LNG terminal ceases operations, cruises could stop at the specially-constructed jetty. These proposals are unlikely to materialise, but they do reveal the limited imagination of the state for what economic development in places like Clare can look like. Rather than a just transition, what we are seeing currently are rural labour and resources being used for economic activity that does not address social needs locally. 

Towards a Brighter Future

So, why talk about development? For some, development is a dirty word. Capitalist states and corporations often market their projects as development, accusing those who question it of preventing progress. 

However, Third World anti-imperialist thinkers such as Walter Rodney did not just think about economic development in terms of capitalist and colonial exploitation, but also in terms of how their societies could develop the material means to meet their social needs and reverse underdevelopment imposed through imperialism. Today, critical ecological perspectives such as degrowth are considering how we can best meet people’s material needs within the ecological limits of the planet. What, then, would economic development look like in rural Ireland if it were to be oriented towards sustainably meeting the needs of those who live there?

The complex structural issues facing rural places in Ireland today are the results of particular models of development that have been pursued by the state and local communities over many decades. Rural Ireland holds a peripheral position within Irish and global capitalism, largely limiting its economy to marginal agriculture, tourism and hosting energy infrastructures to meet demand elsewhere. Too often those who purport to “stand up for rural Ireland” propose no solutions outside of this model of (under)development that is already failing rural Ireland so badly. 

So, does this mean that we should advocate a more even distribution of Ireland’s FDI economy? Google in Loop Head, Amazon in the Burren? Of course not: their dominance in the Irish economy is, after all, at the core of Irish dependency. But we can articulate what kind of economy rural Ireland should have. What if agriculture was reoriented around agroecology and food sovereignty, providing food for local consumption and sustaining rural livelihoods? Could rural communities pursue forms of sustainable small industry to provide materials and technologies needed for a just transition? Are there models of nature restoration and sustainable energy production which could be publicly owned and locally planned? Could we even imagine a radically different model of tourism based on cooperative enterprises, local planning and management, and sustainable, dignified employment? 

Economic dependency has limited the developmental path of rural Ireland. Let’s not our imaginations be limited by it too.