Irish Geography

Regional development and key towns in Ireland: Examining the policy-implementation nexus

Zikang Ji — 2026-09-02

This paper examines the effectiveness of regional policy implementation through an analysis of designated "Key Towns" in Ireland’s Northern and Western Region. Despite ambitious national and regional spatial planning frameworks, such as the National Spatial Strategy and the National Planning Framework, there remains a notable gap between policy aspirations and tangible local outcomes. Employing demographic data, infrastructure assessments, and socio-economic indicators from 2006–2022, we identify key barriers to policy implementation, including fragmented governance, inadequate infrastructure, and mismatches between housing supply and demand. The analysis demonstrates that despite the intended strategic role of these Key Towns as engines of balanced regional development, their capacity to drive local economic and social revitalisation remains constrained. The study contributes new empirical insights into the persistent spatial inequalities affecting small towns, arguing for more targeted, place-based, and locally responsive policy measures. Ultimately, we suggest that bridging the gap between national spatial planning ambitions and local realities will require institutional reform, enhanced local governance capacities, and greater integration of sectoral policies. These findings hold broader implications for European cohesion policies and their practical implementation in similarly peripheral and disadvantaged contexts.

Tithe Applotment: Evaluating and monetising the productive potential of Irish land resources in the 1820s/30s

James Collins — 2026-09-02

The contents of approximately 20% of Ireland’s 2,500 Tithe Applotment Books, were investigated to establish the ways and means by which the agricultural potential of land was assessed for tax/tithe purposes. Based on the 1823 Tithe Act, tithe payment was to be made in money terms rather than by the conventional in-kind system. Most emphasis was placed on interrogating the ‘Quality’ and other sections of these books for indicators of soil productivity/crop suitability, and hence income. The results show that, in general but with exceptions and overlap, Tithe Commissioners employed seven systems to record and present their data. These are, in brief: Undefined terms; Numerals; Prescribed classes; Letter codes; Land uses; Monetary lump sums, entire holdings; Lump sums, within holdings. Based on the sample studied, there were no geographically recognisable distribution pattern to the systems adopted. Random, supplementary land–use data from some books are collated and the contexts with other systems of land quality assessments are noted.

The potential impact of climatic change on landslides in Ireland

Niamh Cullen — 2026-09-02

The response of the Irish landscape to projected changes in climate is not well documented. Although general predictions of climate change for Ireland are well understood, aspects relevant to the impacts of climate change on specific hazards such as landslides have not been adequately discussed. This paper presents a position-based review of how climate change may influence landslide hazards in Ireland, drawing on existing datasets and published examples. Rather than present a new empirical dataset, the paper synthesises existing knowledge and proposes a research agenda for Ireland.

We first summarise the past and current and the modelled climate change under future climate change scenarios. We focus in particular on climate parameters commonly associated with slope instability, including rainfall intensity and duration, prolonged dry and rewetting cycles, storm tracks, wind, and wave action

To illustrate how projected climate changes may affect landslide activity in Ireland, we draw on data from the all-Ireland landslide inventory (Cullen and Bourke, 2024). While Cullen and Bourke (in review) present a national-scale analysis of this dataset, the current study adopts a case study approach to highlight specific examples that reveal both data limitations and research opportunities. The three case studies illustrate a range of antecedent and event meterological conditions. Our analysis of hourly rainfall preceding three landslides in 2020 shows that failures, particularly in peatlands, may occur under varying hydrometeorological conditions. In two cases, landslides followed intense rainfall after prolonged dry periods, while in another, failure occurred during an extended period of persistent wetness. This suggests that both short-duration rainfall extremes and antecedent moisture conditions play critical roles in landslide triggering, with the sequence of wet antecedent conditions followed by intense rainfall emerging as a particularly important pattern in the Irish context.

Based on this and broader evidence, we suggest that landslide frequency in Ireland is likely to increase under future climate conditions characterised by more intense rainfall and greater variability in wet and dry spells. While most well documented events to date involve peat failures, we note a significant data gap regarding coastal slope failures, where climate-driven changes in sea level and storm dynamics may have compounding effects. Addressing these gaps is essential for improving future landslide risk assessment and mitigation strategies.

We propose that future landslide research in Ireland prioritise several key areas. First, there is a need for detailed investigation into the role of rainfall intensity, duration, and temporal variability in triggering mass movements, particularly under changing climatic conditions. Second, long-term (multi-decadal) studies should be undertaken to capture the full range of slope responses to individual events and to sequences of storms, helping to distinguish between immediate triggers and cumulative preconditioning factors. Third, more frequent and systematic monitoring is needed, including annual topographic surveys and rapid post-event assessments, to document geomorphic change and improve hazard forecasting. Finally, dedicated research is required to understand the interaction between sea-level rise, storm surges, and wave impacts on coastal landslides, where both marine and terrestrial processes are important.

Indigenous worldviews in a Western setting

Imogen O'Connor — 2026-09-02

This mixed method study employed survey and interviews to explore in an Irish context, whether Indigenous perspectives on nature have persisted. It examined sixty-five participants’ experiences of connection and communication with nature places, their place-based cultural influences, and their environmental beliefs and behaviours.

Employing a phenomenological perspective, findings revealed often strong connections, attachments and embodied communications with nature places, shaped by the folklore and cultural traditions. These environmentally attuned relationships offered a wide range of benefits and prompted reciprocal responses toward nature places, including practical and spiritual care and broader engagement in pro-environmental behaviours.

Most participants connected with nature places through a lived relational worldview aligned with Celtic cosmology resonant with global Indigenous perspectives. This was characterised by beliefs in nature’s sentience, sacredness, and corresponding requirements for ethical responsibility. Nature communications were frequently associated with transpersonal experiences including personifications of nature as calming or mothering and often accompanied by feelings of awe and wonder.

The findings indicate that despite Westernisation and the legacy of a colonial past, Indigenous lifeworlds and cosmologies grounded in attuned relationships with natural places, sustained and lived through religious/spiritual heritages, culture and folklore, persist and continue to inform contemporary ecological consciousness and behaviour in Ireland.

Keywords

Human-nature communications, Celtic and Indigenous ontologies, ecological beliefs and behaviours, Irish nature-based culture and folklore traditions, phenomenology

Dasymetric map of the population of the Republic of Ireland in 2022

Santos Fernández Noguerol — 2026-09-02

This paper presents a methodology for generating dasymetric maps to estimate the number of people per building using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), census data, building polygons and postal addresses, taking the Republic of Ireland as the study area. The literature review explores the data sources available, the most commonly used techniques when analysing population, with a special focus on dasymetric mapping, as well as previous studies on the population of the Republic. A detailed description of the data processing applied, the analysis tools, the parameters and the software used throughout the process is also presented. The results show a level of detail very close to that collected at household level during the census night and to an extent not previously seen in research within this domain.