Rural Ireland Thinks poll: New faces welcomed to rural areas scarred by decades of emigration

Perhaps in rural Ireland, there is a greater appreciation that people are the lifeblood of community and commercial life, irrespective of their origins

A view of Dingle, Co Kerry. There is copious evidence that State agencies have managed to identify vacant buildings to house asylum applicants in rural Ireland far more readily than in cities. Picture: iStock

John Healy’s  No One Shouted Stop was a howl of despair about the plight of rural Ireland.

Published in 1968, it described the decline of his native Charlestown, Co Mayo, in the face of economic degradation.