The report ‘Social Exclusion and Ageing in Diverse Rural Communities’, was launched recently (Monday, 20 February 2012) at NUI Galway by Ireland’s Minister of State for Disability, Equality, Mental health and Older People, Kathleen Lynch TD, and Northern Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Michelle O’Neill MLA.

Led by researchers at the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology (ICSG) and Queen's University Belfast, and funded by CARDI, it identifies five areas where older people living in rural areas can be excluded. These domains of exclusion are: (1) social connections and social resources; (2) services; (3) transport and mobility; (4) safety, security and crime; and (5) income and financial resources.

Key Findings

-    Four factors were identified which can determine the extent that a person is excluded: (1) individual capacities; (2) life-course trajectories; (3) place and community characteristics; and (4) macro-economic forces.

-    Using these findings, ageing strategies being developed in Ireland and Northern Ireland have the opportunity to develop new programmes to combat social exclusion among rural dwelling older people.

-    Maximising the autonomy, capacity and engagement of older people as well as building intergenerational solidarity in rural communities is key to tackling social exclusion.

Dr Roger O’Sullivan, Director of the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (CARDI) funder of the research, commented:

“People who live in rural areas and experience exclusion are often invisible to society and this is particularly true for older people. With the launch of this report today those developing policy and services now have substantial evidence at hand to help make rural Ireland a good place to grow old.”


A full copy of the report can be viewed at www.icsg.ie or here
A research brief compiled by CARDI is available here

More information

The report authors were Dr Kieran Walsh, Professor Eamon O’Shea and Professor Tom Scharf, from the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology at NUI Galway. The research was completed in collaboration with the Healthy Ageing in Rural Communities (HARC) research network (www.harcresearch.com), which is a cross-border interdisciplinary initiative involving
NUI Galway, Queen’s University Belfast, Rural Community Network and FORUM Connemara.

The research focussed on 10 rural communities across Ireland and Northern Ireland, including island, remote, dispersed, village and near-urban sites: Rathlin (Antrim) and Inishbofin (Galway) as islands; Garrison (Fermanagh) and Dromid (Kerry) as remote communities; Finnis (Down) and Coomhola (Cork) as dispersed communities; Clough (Down) and Upperchurch (Tipperary) as village communities; Donemana (Tyrone) and Rosemount (Westmeath) as near-urban communities.

Researchers carried out over 100 interviews with older people, and consultations with community stakeholders. The participating communities represented a geographical spread across the island of Ireland.