Loneliness in modern Irish life — and the case for rebuilding community

Ireland's young people are some of the loneliest in Europe. Sarah Finnan asks whether reviving our sense of community could be the cure

"In the absence of ready-made structures where community thrives, sometimes it feels like we have to piece together our own networks from nothing."

Ireland once prided itself on being neighbourly. The pub, the parish hall, the pitch: each offered ready-made ways of belonging. 

But as emigration, the cost of living, and the housing crisis redraw the map of Irish life, those easy points of connection have slowly been eroded.