Dr Cormac Walsh Research and Consulting

Small offshore islands face a myriad of challenges due to the increased costs associated with public service provision for small communities with comparatively low levels of accessibility with respect to larger population centres. Many challenges faced by small offshore islands related to accessibility, seasonality, infrastructure and service provision are shared by mainland rural communities but are placed in sharper focus and can have more significant and long-lasting implications within an island context. Today, islands are integrated with mainland societies through information and communication technologies and the regular movement of people and goods. Indeed, in many cases, islands attract large numbers of tourist visitors and in some respects, may be considered less remote or peripheral than some rural communities on the mainland. Islands tend to have a high degree of visibility. They are easily spotted on the map. Their contours are well-defined. They tend to have a strong presence in the popular imagination, often because of their perceived remoteness and status as ‘places apart’. Islands are often valued as sites of natural and cultural heritage, associated with distinct literary or artistic traditions or as refuges for endangered species. Neighbouring islands within an archipelago are often found to have distinct characters, reflecting locally-specific social, cultural and environmental dynamics. Islands are thus both ordinary and extraordinary places. They are neither homogenous nor uniform. They may have a strong place-based identity but are also plural and diverse microcosms of the wider societies and webs of relations within which they are situated. It is thus difficult to speak, or write of islands in the plural.

Inishbofin Island, Connemara, Ireland. Andreas F. Borchert, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>" data-type="link" data-id="“>CC BY-SA 3.0 DE via Wikimedia Commons.