OPINION: Why is Mayo bottom of the population-growth league?

THERE is something compelling about the census of population compared with other official data. We can argue about the meaning of GDP, unemployment and inflation, but a head count of all the people in the country at midnight on a specific date leaves only modest room for misunderstanding. The most recent census was taken on Sunday, April 3, 2022, postponed for a year in the aftermath of Covid.
The recorded national population in 2022 was 5.1 million, an 8 percent increase from 2016. However, the peculiarity of Irish demographics is illustrated by the fact that the population in 1841 of what is now Ireland was 6.5 million and, in the aftermath of the Great Famine, it fell to 5.1 million in 1851. By 1926, it had further shrunk to 3 million and reached its nadir in 1958 at 2.8 million. So let’s give ourselves a pat on the back! We have now achieved the same population as we had over 170 years ago!
Census data permit one to set up league tables of population winners and losers.

County leagues
Let’s start at the county level and pose the question: what was the county (or part of a county) that grew fastest over the extended period from the 1991 census to the most recent? That period smooths out the ups and downs of booms and busts. (When the economy tanks, we Irish tend to head off to greener pastures. When it booms, we often return. Swings and roundabouts.)
Between 1991 and 2022, national population grew by 46 percent. Top of the growth league was one of the four administrative divisions of Dublin: Fingal (116 percent), encompassing Dublin’s north side. Meath was runner up at 110 percent. Dublin South grew at the national average, and the two remaining Dublin divisions (Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, 24 percent; Dublin City, 26 percent) were nationally the slowest and third slowest.
Guess who came second from the bottom of the population growth league? Needless to say, it was Mayo (25 percent). (Will Dublin ever let us win anything?)
It will surprise no one familiar with Dublin traffic commuter patterns that adjoining counties of Meath (110 percent), Kildare (102 percent), Wicklow (60.2 percent) and Westmeath (55.5 percent) have become dormitory counties for the Dublin metropolis. Ratoath, in Meath, wins the prize for the fastest-growing town (an astonishing 1,600 percent).
What about county losers? Starting from the lowest growth, ignoring the distraction of Dublin’s four sub-regions, the ranking is Mayo (25 percent) at the bottom, followed by Tipperary, Cork (excluding Cork city), Monaghan, Sligo, Kerry, Limerick, Donegal, and Roscommon, which all in the range of 26-35 percent.
Do I detect a pattern here? An east-west divide, but with the five cities prospering and the hinterlands lagging?
The census for Mayo, the big loser in the population growth competition, identifies 22 towns for the complete 1991 to 2022 period. The winner is Ballinrobe at 156 percent, neck and neck with Balla at 155 percent. Knock, Ballyhaunis, Claremorris, and Ballindine all show over 100 percent growth. The biggest loser is Killala (-18 percent), with Crossmolina (-6 percent) and Ballycastle (-2 percent) all registering declining populations since 1991.

Policy problem
RANKING population growth by town, a clear spatial pattern emerges. Towns in the middle and south grew robustly (Kiltimagh is an exception). Towns to the north are struggling, and the further north or northwest you go, the worse the problem becomes. What are likely contributing factors? Why is growth in Ballina nearly five times slower than that in Ballinrobe? Why is the population of Mayo today (138,000) still lower than that in the 1926 census (172,000)?
There are some big elephants in the room that governments have ignored for decades. A hint is that many of the slow and negative growth Mayo towns lie on or close to the currently disused rail line linking Claremorris to Collooney/Sligo and the inadequate N17 national route. Absent these and other transport links, the region risks withering on the vine.
For comparison, look at Sligo to the north, designated in the Northern and Western Regional Assembly’s Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy as a ‘regional growth centre’. Here, a curious pattern of population growth emerges. Population in the county grew by 28.2 percent, similar to Mayo. Sligo town grew by only 14.7 percent over the period 1991-2022, the same rate as Achill Sound in Mayo.
However, there are five small Sligo towns whose growth was dramatic: Strandhill (203 percent), Ballysadare (201 percent), Collooney (194 percent), Enniscrone and Tubbercurry (117 percent), with population levels in the range 1,800 to 2,300.
Mayo and Sligo share some common characteristics. Growth is spread among a range of relatively small but fairly dynamic towns. They share a peripherality exacerbated by poor transport infrastructure. Both counties have demonstrated that they can attract and sustain dynamic modern industries and act as tourism focal points. However, they risk failing to achieve their true potential because of the disconnected manner in which regional policy is applied in Ireland.
The fact that the crucial final link in the WRC is embroiled in a fractious debate between its restoration and its conversion into a greenway speaks volumes about the current regional development fiasco. In the meantime, men decay without even the solace of wealth accumulation.

John Bradley is a former ESRI professor and has published on the island economy of Ireland, EU development policy, industrial strategy and economic modelling.