Ireland's Empty Towns: Social changes have hollowed out County Limerick's market towns

Limerick Council has recorded 276 derelict sites across the county. Some are confined within the limits of the city. But many others are dotted across towns spanning the county.

Three of these towns, Abbeyfeale, Rathkeale, and Bruff, all share common themes.

In Abbeyfeale, a street that once was home to a number of families now sits empty, its former homes crumbling.

Shops that were once a focal point of the community remain vacant, and a half-finished estate sits mockingly at the top of the town, despite the fact the town faces a major shortage of rental property.

Rathkeale, located around 30km from Limerick City, has an entire estate with over 30 houses that have been left vacant since they were built over a decade ago.

Recent compulsory purchase orders have left many locals waiting eagerly to see what the council will do with them. Will an influx of new inhabitants be enough to set back the clocks on the town’s main street, also dotted with empty properties, only time will tell.

Bruff, with a smaller population than its two counterparts, has felt the repeated blow of closures over the years, losing many of its most prominent businesses and amenities over the last decade or so.

With many people opting to spend their money in the city or nearby larger towns, it is a struggle to fight the tides of change.

Each of these towns also has a key factor in common — community pride.

The people who live there love their hometowns to the extent that many of each community’s success stories over the last number of years have come from grass-root approaches.

But they cannot carry this weight alone. Policy changes and forward-thinking planning must be utilised at both national and regional levels, in order to ensure these towns are not left in the past, and that the pride of those who live there is rewarded, and not ignored.

An Taisce Limerick chairperson Dr John Logan believes that vacancy and dereliction are essentially symptoms of something deeper going on.

“You can get the tidy towns people out to paint them up, or you can apply for a grant which will pay for people to remove litter, but it still doesn’t deal with the underlying issue,” Mr Logan said.

The underlying issue is the big social and economic changes that have come in. There are multiple factors at play, but the biggest one is the arrival of the motor car into everybody’s drive, from the 1960s on.

Mr Logan recalls his youth in Leitrim, in the 1960s, and the impact cars had on the town.

His view is that the impact that the car has had on rural towns, from that point in time up until now, 2021, has been so great that the derelict shops, which were once the lifeline of those who didn’t drive, are now only useful if they are levelled and used for parking.

According to Mr Logan, anyone who shopped in an Irish country town between 1850 and 1970 came there by foot, cart, or from 1900, by bicycle.

They lived no further than ten miles away, he said.

He explained that this radius explains the spatial distribution of the county towns.

This all changed with the arrival of the motor car, which, according to Mr Logan, came for the upper classes from 1900 onwards, the middle classes from 1945, and finally, the working classes, those who earn a wage, from the 1970s.

This broke the link between the county town shop and its customers, Mr Logan said, because people, who were looking to spend their wages, could then drive to a bigger town, where there was a bigger selection and better deals.

As time went by, more and more people learned to drive, meaning the shops and businesses in rural towns received less business, resulting in their eventual closures.

For Mr Logan, there are no easy answers.

You can say ‘start supporting local businesses. Start supporting local pubs,’ but for many of those businesses, it is already too late. They are already closed.

Abbeyfeale's population has risen, roughly, from 1500 to 2000 in the past 20 years, whereas Rathkeale has stayed fairly static, between 1200 and 1400. 

Comparing figures from the 1911 census shows that Abbeyfeale's population hasn't notably changed, although Bruff's population has halved in the century since it was taken. 

This, according to Mr Logan, shows that it’s not a case of the town population shrinking. He believes that many people, who would have been in these towns 20 years ago, are still there, but it is their habits that have changed, in that they now travel to the cities to do their shopping.

“It’s a lot like the trains,” Mr Logan said.

“Everyone will say that ‘it's a shame, we don’t have the train here anymore.’ But once they got cars, they stopped using the train,” he added.

The aesthetic and anti-social elements of the problem are well documented, but this dereliction is also actively contributing to the county’s homelessness crisis.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Monthly Homelessness Report shows that as of May 2021 there were 221 people registered as homeless in Co Limerick. Limerick's Housing Support Services waiting list had 2,316 people on it in June.

According to Una Burns, who is head of policy and communications with Novas, a homeless charity working in the region, vacant properties in towns, particularly over-shop units, have the potential to reduce homelessness, particularly for single people.

“One- and two-bed units of accommodation comprise the majority of requests on social housing waiting lists. With a dearth of these small units both in social housing stock and in the private rented market, bringing vacant ones back into use would help reduce the length of time single people are homeless,” said Ms Burns, adding that the current waiting time can be years.

The Repair and Lease Scheme was introduced under Rebuilding Ireland to encourage the upgrade and letting of vacant properties. Outside the pilot counties of Carlow and Waterford, the scheme’s impact is minimal, although Limerick has one of the highest rates of uptake.

In Limerick, around 20 units have been brought into use under this scheme.

“The limits for refurbishment (originally €40,000, recently raised to €60,000) have limited the number of landlords that can participate if significant works to the property are required. The scheme also needs to be better advertised, so more landlords can engage,” Ms Burns said.

“Rural homelessness certainly compounds issues in cities generally, as people seeking services radiate to urban centres where they can access support. Homelessness outside of cities can be a hidden issue, with people often sofa surfing or living in overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation,” she added.

The physical presence of these vacant and derelict buildings brings with it a host of problems in itself. Aesthetically, it can make towns look run down and worn out, while the buildings often become magnets for anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping.

This can impact the town’s sense of morale and pride, as well as denting the aspirations of local businesses and discouraging tourism.