Mary Cawley

Promoting Integrated Rural Tourism: Comparative Perspectives on Institutional Networking in France and Ireland

Abstract This paper investigates the roles of horizontal and vertical networking in promoting integrated rural tourism (IRT) through a comparative study of the West Region of Ireland and the Auvergne region of France. New regional and local partnerships and territorial structures have been established in both countries during recent decades but control of tourism policy remains centralized to a greater or lesser extent, resulting in feelings of limited representation among smaller scale producers who are at the centre of the integrated tourism model studied in SPRITE (Supporting and Promoting Integrated Tourism in Europes Lagging Rural Regions). Differences between the regions include greater executive power at regional and local scales in France, which is conducive to more extensive horizontal networking, and more successful vertical networking for promotion and marketing in Ireland. Lessons may be learned from both for the more effective promotion of IRT.

Local partnerships for rural development: Ireland's experience in context

Abstract Ireland has one of the strongest records in Europe of using local partnerships to address the challenges of rural development. These include County Enterprise Boards, LEADER companies and Local Area Partnerships. This paper presents the results of recent survey research which compares the different types of Irish partnerships in terms of their origins, growth, activities and impacts, and assesses the Irish partnership experience within the context of research in seven other EU countries. Such a comparative approach provides insights which assume particular interest at a time when the Irish Government has adopted new initiatives to promote greater co‐ordination of partnership activities at a county level.

Town population change 1971–1986: Patterns and distributional effects

Abstract Population change was traced for census town‐size groups for the years 1971–1981 and 1981–1986. The 1970s were characterised by widespread growth; medium‐size towns in particular increased their share of the total population and some redistribution from inner‐areas to suburbs took place. The years 1981–1986 were, by contrast, marked by lower growth rates, selective town decline and considerable continuity in distribution patterns.

Non-attendance at outpatient clinics at the regional hospital, Galway, Ireland

This paper examines the issue of non-attendance at outpatient clinics at the Regional Hospital, Galway, from the viewpoint of the patients who include both urban and rural residents. The results of a questionnaire survey of outpatients attending general and specialist medical and surgical clinics illustrate that very substantial costs are incurred and long periods of time are spent travelling by many patients. Females, and married females in particular, experience special difficulty in keeping appointments. Non-attendance increases as the cost of transport increases but many patients seriously underestimate the real cost of travel. Patients who have been attending over long periods of time have the worst record of non-attendance. It is recommended that any reorganisation of hospital outpatient systems in rural areas such as Western Ireland should take account of the particular needs of widely dispersed populations.

Organizational Networking in an Emerging Ecotourism Destination

This paper presents the results of a study of planned ecotourism destination development in an economically marginal rural area on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The initiative, which was funded primarily from European Union sources, was administered by a network consisting of representatives of local authorities, national tourism bodies, regional and rural development groups, and ecotourism providers. The paper focuses on the organizational network and its networking in promoting ecotourism. At the end of the pilot project the network ceased to function actively, reflecting the short-term nature of some funding-led organizational forms. However, a range of benefits arose in terms of increased awareness of ecotourism and the potential of the selected area for this form of tourism, incorporation of ecotourism into policy documents and the emergence of a provider-led ecotourism promotional group. The experience suggests that even short-term networking can have more positive outcomes than is sometimes recognized.

Service delivery through partnerships in sparsely populated areas: evidence from France and Ireland

Meeting the service needs of the less well-off and the elderly in areas of low density population remains a perennial problem. Increasingly, partnership between two or more of the state, the private and the voluntary sectors is viewed as a strategy for delivering welfare services, as part of new forms of local governance. Previous research points to the influence of established and new institutional and associated territorial structures on the formation and working of partnerships. This paper examines the role of partnerships in home-based welfare service delivery in France and Ireland; countries which share similarities, but also marked differences in their systems of local government and governance. The results reveal that both established and new territorial and institutional structures are influential in moulding approaches to service delivery through partnership. So too is the continuing role of the state, in contrast to some descriptions of the influence of neo-liberalism.

The role of quality tourism and craft SMEs in rural development: evidence from the republic of Ireland.

ABSTRACT Niche industries such as handcrafts production and rural tourism services, particularly those which may be defined as ‘quality’, are being assigned increased importance in national and EU rural development policies. Yet relatively little attention has been devoted to quality enterprises in the research literature to date. This paper reviews recent evidence relating to the formation and growth of 99 small and medium-size quality tourism and handcrafts enterprises in two regions in Western Ireland. The characteristics of the entrepreneurs, features of the businesses and the role of support agencies are discussed in the context of the production and marketing of quality products and services. Businesses are clustered on the basis of key actions and outcomes and similarities and contrasts between regions and industrial sectors are discussed.

Aspects of rural-urban integration in western Ireland

Contacts between countryside and town have increased in western Ireland as a concomitant of industrialisation. Members of the farm population now travel to work each day in urban centres as do non-agriculruralists who have moved for residence to the countryside. Such daily journeys are instrumental in establishing other social and economic ties between countryside and town as study of grocery shopping patterns and leisure outings in the hinterland of Galway city — a modern growth centre — reveals. Galway city functions as a shopping centre for non-farm households in particular. Among both farm and non-farm groups, joint leisure outings of husbands and wives reflect the growing importance of the urban work centre as a social focus.

Defining ecotourism: evidence of provider perspectives from an emerging area

On-going discussion surrounds the definition of ecotourism. Definitions are usually constructed by policy-makers involved in developing ‘ecotourism’ destinations, tour operators, organisations such as the International Ecotourism Society, certification bodies and academics who wish to bring some order to the multiplicity of definitions that exist. This paper seeks to add information relating to tourism provider understandings of ecotourism, by assessing evidence based on in-depth interviews against diagnostic criteria compiled by Fennell, D. A. [2001. A content analysis of ecotourism definitions. Current Issues in Tourism, 4, 403–421. doi:10.1080/13683500108667896]. The research was conducted in the Greenbox ecotourism destination in the north midlands of Ireland. The Greenbox provides an example of an emerging destination, without a strongly developed image, providing a multiplicity of ecotourism products, the providers of which held narrow understandings of ecotourism for the most part. It was a short-term ‘top-down’ experiment but had longer-term impacts in contributing to a provider-led initiative. Ecotourism was understood principally as being based on the natural environment which needs to be protected and conserved; more detailed understanding was influenced by the personal background and experience of a minority of providers.

Geography Under Threat in Irish Second-level Education

Recent Department of Education recommendations for a revised second-level junior cycle programme in the Republic of Ireland omitted geography from its established position in the core curriculum. This paper describes the background to the revised curricular recommendations, the efforts undertaken by geographers to defend the position of their discipline and the outcome of their efforts. The evidence illustrates that, as in several other countries, the integrity of geography as a school subject was threatened by moves to broaden the school curriculum to incorporate new areas of study including technological, social and political education. As a result of winning political support, a ministerial commitment has been received that geography will remain in the core curriculum. A lack of clarity remains about its precise status in terms of the timetabled teaching hours that will be allocated.