Insularity and Accessibility: the Small Island Communities of Western Ireland

Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 317}330, 1999  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0743-0167/99 $ } see front matter

PII: S0743-0167(98)00062-X

Insularity and Accessibility: the Small Island Communities of Western Ireland Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley* Orumragh Integrated College, Omagh, Co. Tyronez BT79 0NF, Northern Ireland School of Environmental Studies, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry BT52 1SA Northern Ireland

Abstract * Small o!shore islands have a high dependence on external transport linkages. The standard of service provided by sea ferries and other forms of communication is expected to play a crucial role in in#uencing the islands' population levels, economy and quality of life. Nine small islands o! the west coast of Ireland were surveyed in the early 1990s, with particular attention paid to service provision and transport facilities. These varied widely, as also did accessibility scores derived from suitable indicators. Detailed analysis of questionnaire data was conducted to ascertain how travel behaviour was a!ected by limited transport to the mainland. Contrary to assumptions about declining peripheral areas, there is great diversity among the islands with respect to population trends and economic well-being. A secondary objective therefore was to test to what extent variations in &population stability' and community satisfaction could be explained by accessibility and other transportrelated factors.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Islands are likely to exhibit problems of economic viability, social isolation and external dependency, generally in inverse proportion to their size and population. Small islands which lie o!shore a much larger island state or continental mainland are particularly liable to demonstrate a condition of economic and political dependency (Royle, 1989). Their insular status automatically renders them &peripheral' in the simple geographical sense, and this peripherality often translates into economic marginality and neglect by the central political power. A number of generalisations are frequently heard: they have small populations; they are rural in character, probably dependent on agriculture and/or "shing; they are &poor in resources', by which is meant presumably that they lack the basis for industrialisation and self-sustaining growth; they are dependent on subsidies from the central state; they su!er from &isolation'; their peoples are disadvantaged in that they are out of touch with

* Corresponding author.

the cultural mainstream. While similar pejoratives have been levelled at remote rural areas of the mainland, o!shore islands su!er the added impediment of a marine barrier which must be surmounted, at considerable cost, to achieve access. It is tempting to regard this insularity as most crucial in perpetuating disadvantage on the islands, and hence the quality of transport services to the mainland, usually by sea, is a major concern to island communities. Ireland has a fringe of small islands around its northwestern, western, and south-western coasts (Fig. 1). At a high level of generalisation, their historical experience provides much evidence for the stereotype outlined above. They are small in size and population, rural and peripheral, dependent (at least in the past) on farming and "shing, and have long been poor in services and infrastructure. This syndrome of related problems, with perceived better opportunities elsewhere, is manifested in population decline over a long period. However, this situation is not exclusive to the islands, but is an accentuated form of that prevailing until recently in their regional hinterland. The same problems have been endemic throughout the rural &West of Ireland', re#ected in persistent depopulation

318

Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley

Figure 1. The survey islands and others mentioned in the text.

from the 1840s to the 1970s; a population &turnaround' since then has proved rather fragile (Walsh, 1991). Hence, the islands' remoteness is exaggerated by a weak regional context, within a country which is itself peripheral in a European context. But islands are special cases. Their very insularity, plus their small size, implies dependence on the mainland and emphasises the vital importance of external communications. By analysing survey results from the

early 1990s, this paper explores the role of transport and accessibility factors in in#uencing islanders' contacts with the outside world. A composite measure of accessibility is used to assess both frequency and quality of service. Although transport links vary, opportunities for business and social contacts on the mainland are inevitably restricted. Examination of island-to-mainland travel patterns reveals local people's responses to such constraints, their lifestyle adjustments in terms of self-reliance or dependency,

Insularity and Accessibility and the degree of disadvantage imposed by the marine barrier. The data used here were extracted from a wider survey (Cross, 1995), the aims of which were to evaluate the contemporary well-being of island communities, with special emphasis on population and migration trends. A secondary objective of the current paper is to assess to what extent the latter are related to di!erential standards of external transport and accessibility.

319

largest Irish island, Valentia, Gorumna, and Dursey * which has a cable car (see Fig. 1). From long term census records, Royle and Scott (1996) show convincingly that these and other islands with a physical connection have had a lower rate of population decline, or an increase, compared with islands without a "xed link, which have all shown severe long term decline. The former group are not without problems [e.g. McGrath (1991) on Achill], but nevertheless it remains clear that accessibility has a fundamental and positive role.

Historical prelude In the past, it was normal to associate the islands' relative inaccessibility, or isolation, with population decline. Depopulation threatened the minimum threshold size for the community to remain viable, and the smallest and remotest islands were unable to resist complete evacuation. Celebrated cases were Great Blasket Island in 1953 (MacConghail, 1987) and Gola Island at the end of the 1960s (Aalen and Brody, 1969). Many small islands close inshore are now occupied in summer only. Tory Island was threatened with evacuation in the 1970s and early 1980s despite a population then of over 200 (O'Peicin and Nolan, 1997). On the relationships between accessibility, population and development, the historical evidence is rather ambivalent. The concept of &isolation', for example, is a di$cult one, as it refers not just to geographical remoteness, poor local facilities and external linkages, but it is also a social psychological notion, relative to the community's values and expectations (Stone, 1972; Nutley, 1980). It is frequently assumed that relieving isolation, and enhancing accessibility, by the provision of better transport will facilitate trade and social contacts and thereby stem the loss of population. The opposite view is that, at least in the past, relative isolation has sustained community cohesion and cultural traditions, while improving accessibility has opened the door to better opportunities elsewhere and encouraged out-migration. Historical experience in Ireland supports the latter view. Barnhill (1983) found remoter islands su!ered less depopulation, while Aalen and Brody (1969), among others, attributed population losses to the islands being opened up, via sea transport, to the market economy. One might also question the validity of &vicious circle' models, in which depopulation is self-perpetuating. It is unlikely that transport alone, as is suggested by a recent o$cial report on the islands (Government of Ireland, 1996), is the trigger factor in setting o! a &cycle of decline'. For islands lying close inshore with a reasonable population, the most e!ective way to enhance accessibility is to construct a &"xed link' by a bridge or causeway. The main examples are Great Island in Cork harbour * which is urbanised, Achill * the

Depopulation is generally deplored, as the well-being of the rural West of Ireland, including the islands, looms large in the national consciousness, a feeling bolstered by the desire to support Irish language and culture which are strong in these areas. Sustaining the population in the rural West and the islands has been a political imperative for successive Irish governments.

The survey In selecting a sample of islands for investigation, all those connected physically with the mainland were excluded. Otherwise, the main criterion was that the islands should have a population large enough to constitute a &community', de"ned entirely subjectively. This meant, in practice, a minimum population of about 70. Some above this size were omitted, such as Spike Is. (a prison), Rathlin, in Northern Ireland, which does not have the same &remote west coast' situation, and a couple of others to avoid con#ict with other surveys in progress at the same time. This left nine islands as the subject of study (Fig. 1). These were: the County Donegal islands of Tory (Toraigh) and Arranmore (formerly known as Aran Island), Clare, Inishturk and Inishbo"n * the group of three islands o! the coast of Counties Mayo and Galway, Inisheer (Inis Oirr) * one of the three Aran Islands o! the coast of County Clare, and the three County Cork islands of Beare, Sherkin and Cape Clear (Cleire). Fieldwork was conducted in 1990 and 1991. Questionnaires were administered on a household basis, aiming at 50% sample on Arranmore and 100% on the other islands, achieving a total of 412 returns. Populations and response rates are given in Table 1(a). The survey had a wide coverage, emphasising questions of population, household structure and migration, but also dealing with employment, services and facilities, and travel to the mainland. It also enquired into respondents' perceptions of the di$culties of island life compared with the mainland. Selected variables are presented in Table 1(a,b). The main feature here is diversity, immediately confounding

320

Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley Table 1. Population characteristics of the islands surveyed

(a) Island

1991

Population % change 1981}1991

Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands

119 596 137 78 181 270 216 93 132 1822

!42.8 !25.8 7.9 2.6 !7.2 13.0 !14.3 32.9 !19.5 !14.6

!23.8 3.9 !24.4 !8.4 !17.4 !23.6 !12.5 !14.6 !14.6 !11.4

34 90 38 21 53 54 64 26 32 412

69.4 47.4 86.4 95.5 74.6 66.7 74.7 83.9 72.7 66.7

Population under 15 (%)

Population over 64 (%)

Males per 100 females

Population non-native (%)

Population employed (%)

Irish speakers (%)

119 110 123 119 127 123 138 109 115 120

2.5 16.0 9.3 6.5 8.8 5.5 15.4 49.3 29.1 14.3

17.3 18.1 38.3 36.6 35.3 29.6 31.4 37.7 42.9 29.8

100.0 77.2 0.0 0.0 0.7 100.0 0.0 0.0 78.6 45.3

(b) 1990}1991

Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands

Population

23.4 25.3 31.8 43.5 16.9 28.7 22.2 24.6 22.1 26.5

21.0 17.4 20.6 10.9 24.3 12.7 19.1 15.1 20.9 18.0

Population % change 1971}1981

Households surveyed 1990}1991

Response rate (% of hhs)

Source: Irish Republic Census (1991); author's survey.

any sweeping generalisations about peripheral areas and their assumptions of homogeneity. Depopulation, the most commonly assumed characteristic, is seen to be highly variable, and no longer valid for four of the islands. Tory Island appeared to be su!ering the most: it is the most remote and exposed of the Irish islands, 14 km from the mainland, notorious for bad weather and has frequently been cut o!. Since the mid-1980s it was no longer threatened with evacuation and obtained more state support, but population continued to decline steeply up to 1991 (Scott and Royle, 1992; Hunter, 1996). Nearby Arranmore, the biggest island without a "xed link, is only 3 km from the mainland and has a good ferry service, yet its previously healthy population total (800 in 1981) has shown a startling reversal. This is attributed to a collapse in the "shing industry in the late 1980s, and to many people being away on seasonal employment in Britain. Remarkably few people were found to be employed on these two islands at the time of the survey. The Mayo/Galway islands of Clare, Inishturk and Inishbo"n have all slowed or reversed their population losses. These remained the most strongly dependent on farming which has proved more resilient that elsewhere, together with a successful "shing business on Inishturk and various tourist enterprises on Clare.

Inisheer is one of the three Aran Islands, which are renowned for their archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic heritage, and consequently attract state support and a #ourishing tourist industry (Robinson, 1986). These were probably the main reasons for its population turnaround, despite the recent failures of various industrial enterprises. The three County Cork islands of Beare, Sherkin and Cape Clear demonstrate remarkable di!erences (Somerville-Large, 1985). The "rst two have a more sheltered environment while the last is more exposed. Beare continued to lose population despite being close to the mainland with a good ferry service. Sherkin owed its dramatic population increase to a community of non-native incomers, attracted for &quality of life' reasons, working in arts and crafts. This island had the most balanced employment structure, including also a knitting cooperative. Adjacent Cape Clear had an apparently successful multipurpose cooperative, but was still losing people. Other social characteristics show variations among the islands [Table 1(b)] that do not necessarily conform to the &peripheral area' stereotype. The islands are not short of young people, although there is a relatively high proportion of elderly, and dependency rates can be unfavourable. A small number of families can have a disproportionate in#uence. The highly

Insularity and Accessibility abnormal sex ratios, however, do "t the stereotype, the product of generations of selective out-migration. Four islands * Tory, Arranmore, Inisheer and Cape Clear * retain a high presence of Irish culture and language (Gaeltacht areas), and are eligible for state funding for infrastructure and setting up cooperatives. Further discussion of population, economic and social factors is prohibited by constraints of space, but for subsequent analysis it is expedient to develop a summary index to re#ect the general well-being of the respective islands. It is conventional to use population trends for this purpose. Hence, an index of &population stability' was derived from the standardised values of eleven demographic variables (Cross, 1995), and this was used in the research for correlations with services, transport and accessibility factors.

Island services In any location, accessibility over space depends initially on the availability of desirable goods and services at or near the point of demand, i.e. within walking distance, so that there is no requirement for any form of transport. In a small island situation, the existence of local consumer service outlets is clearly vital to avoid or minimise travel to the mainland for &supplies', and generally to reduce dependence on the outside world. The small size of the islands under study means that only low-order services could reasonably be expected to survive locally, and the need for mediumand high-order services makes some degree of dependence unavoidable, consequently putting a premium on transport links to the mainland. The &decline of rural services', for familiar economic reasons, has been widespread in rural Ireland (Cawley, 1989), and small outlets on the islands are under more severe pressure due to low demand and high unit costs plus the expense of sea transport.

321

Services existing on the islands at the time of the surveys in 1990}1991 are listed in Table 2 (see also Cross, 1996). There was at least one grocery store in some form or other on every island. On Inishturk there was no shop as such, but tinned and packaged groceries were sold from the kitchen of one of the houses. On Arranmore, by contrast, there was a number of shops including one self-service &mini-market'. On Tory and Clare the main shops were run by the island cooperatives. Choice and quality are obviously limited, and islanders must make their own decisions on the justi"cation for the e!ort and expense of a trip to the mainland for more choice and better products. The availability of daily newspapers and fresh milk were taken as indicators of basic retail standards, as both require a high frequency of transport service from the mainland. Tory and Inishturk were most problematic with respect to fresh milk, bread, fruit and vegetables, and such items were invariably frozen. There was still a minor role for local produce and home baking, although dependence on these had declined. Food freezers are a great asset to island households, but reliable electricity supply has been a relatively recent provision, with the last island * Inishturk * receiving this only in 1987. On Arranmore, retail options were enhanced by a number of mobile shops visiting from the mainland, taking advantage of the relatively frequent vehicle ferry. Social and entertainment facilities comprised public bars, community centre clubs and in some cases, where there was a reasonable expectation of visitors, hotels. Such facilities were invariably small and activities limited, but they had a vital importance for community cohesion and morale. Not all interests can be catered for, and young people in particular may feel deprived of social and recreational opportunities that their counterparts on the mainland readily expect. There was a resident priest on all the islands, except Inishturk. In the latter case, the priest crossed from

Table 2. Availability of island services, 1990}1991 Island Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear Rarity value

Grocery Daily Fresh store newspaper milk * * * * * * * * * 0.111

Source: author's survey.

*

* *

* * *

* * * * * 0.143

0.250

Mobile Pub or Primary Secondary Facility shop club Hotel Priest Nurse Doctor school school score *

1.000

* * * * * * * * * 0.111

* * * * * 0.200

* * * * * * * * 0.125

* * * * * * * * * 0.111

*

1.000

* * * * * * * * * 0.111

*

*

0.500

0.569 3.662 0.912 0.444 1.162 1.662 0.962 0.912 0.712

322

Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley

neighbouring Clare Island when possible every alternate Sunday. The priest's role is often wider than merely spiritual, frequently extending into community leadership (O'Peicin and Nolan, 1997). Medical facilities on the islands were generally limited to those of a resident state nurse and infrequent visits by a general practitioner. Only on Arranmore was there a GP's clinic attended by a resident doctor. Elsewhere, when advised by the nurse, patients would be referred to a GP's surgery on the mainland, an exercise which might require a two or three night stay. Emergency cases, and expectant mothers, require transport by boat, aircraft or helicopter to mainland hospitals. Every island had a primary school, but the normal procedure for secondary pupils was weekly boarding at schools on the mainland. In the case of Beare Island, the short distance and regular ferry permitted pupils to make the return journey daily to school in the mainland town of Castletownbeare. Such is the importance attached to secondary education that two island communities * Arranmore and Inisheer * in the 1980s managed to secure state funding for secondary schools on the islands themselves, despite the small rolls; the Inisheer school had under 20 pupils in 1990}1991. On some of the smaller islands, primary school pupil numbers were precariously low, but the schools are probably not under threat. Other services and utilities do not have any direct implications for transport to the mainland, but are obviously important for quality of life. Piped water, electricity and telecommunications have all been improved, although provision to a reasonable standard has come only since the 1970s and in smaller islands even more recently (Cross, 1996). One service with implications for travel and accessibility is the telephone. Standards were notoriously poor, but were modernised on all the islands in the 1980s. Average private telephone ownership, from the survey, was 53%, which is still relatively low, varying between 18% (Tory) and 71% (Inishturk). Sharing among neighbours, however, means that no-one is likely to be deprived of this vital instrument of communication. In Table 2 the facilities listed have been converted to a &rarity value', re#ecting their relative availability, and these have been summed for the facilities present on each island, producing a &facility score' which will be used subsequently for correlation purposes.

Island transport Due to their small size, local transport within the islands is of very little signi"cance, whereas the crucial

element of any external journey, whatever the ultimate destination, is the crossing of a relatively short stretch of water. Again due to the islands' small size, transport services to and from the mainland have always been unremunerative, except perhaps for additional summer tourist trips, and most were in need of, but did not necessarily receive, state subsidy by some mechanism or other. Existing ferry services were therefore idiosyncratic, often of a minimal standard, and subject to local resources. The islands best served were Arranmore and Beare, both of which had regular and e$cient vehicle ferries with at least four sailings per day on a short 20-minute crossing. Both islands are fairly close inshore and easily connected to a small town on the mainland; disruption due to bad weather is rare. The Arranmore ferry owes its viability to that island's relatively large population plus funding from the Irish government agency responsible for the Gaeltacht. Beare Island has neither of these advantages, the ferry having been provided by a local businessman. By contrast, the two worst cases were Tory Island and Inishturk, both remote from the mainland and vulnerable to bad weather and heavy seas. In 1990}1991 the former island was serviced by a twice-weekly mail boat from the Donegal coast, but su!ering from a high rate of cancellations and poor harbour facilities, despite eligibility for Gaeltacht support. Private boat operators, however, have discovered Tory's tourist potential, providing a greatly enhanced service in the short summer season. Often regarded as a special case due to severe winter isolation, Tory was permitted a fortnightly helicopter service funded through state agency. Inishturk had no regular ferry service, with residents having to depend on the weekly mail boat or one of the island's "shing boats. Of the remaining "ve islands, only Inishbo"n had a vessel o$cially licensed as a ferry. Others tended to be converted "shing or pleasure craft, limited to a small number of permitted passengers with little consideration to comfort and safety. Inisheer and Cape Clear also have Gaeltacht support, whereas the non-Irish speaking islands did not, leading to some sense of discrimination. The case of Inisheer requires further comment, as its transport to/from the mainland represents an extreme case of seasonality, which a!ects all the islands to some degree. The basic (i.e. winter) boat service to Inisheer was once per week, but in summer the widely publicised tourist potential of the Aran Islands (Inisheer, Inishmaan and Inishmore) attracted a hugely expanded range of services by competing private boat operators, from Galway city and two other points on the mainland. Provision of better services for tourists in the short summer season only, leaving islanders dependent on poorer, less frequent

Insularity and Accessibility

323

Table 3. Components of island accessibility, 1990}1991: (s) summer; (w) winter Ferry service frequency Island Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear Unit Score

More than twice daily

Twice daily

Length of crossing

5}7 days 3}4 days 1}2 days Less per per per than week week week 30 min

s

More 30}60 than one 5 per min hour week

w

s/w

s/w s/w

s

w

s/w

s s/w s

3}4 per 1}2 per week week w w

s/w s s s/w s s 5

w w

w

3

s/w 1

s/w s/w

w 4

s/w s

3

w 2

1

5

Other service factors

Vehicle ferry Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear Unit score

Mail delivery frequency

s/w

s/w 5

Return in one day Sunday possible service s s/w s

s s/w s

s/w s s/w s/w s/w 2

s/w s s/w s/w s/w 2

Nontidal s/w s/w s s/w s/w s/w 2

Air service

Onward public Cabin transport Islandcover available based s s/w s/w s/w s/w s/w 2

s/w s/w s/w s/w s/w s 5

s/w s/w s s s/w s s/w s/w 2

Daily

Every two weeks w

s/w s/w s/w s/w s/w s/w s/w 2

5

w 3

1

Accessibility score

s/w

Total

18/6 32/32 20/12 4/2 23/18 28/16 32/30 25/24 23/18

30 96 44 8 59 60 92 73 59

1

Source: author's survey.

facilities through the long winter, was a major source of resentment. Inisheer, however, together with the other two Aran Islands, had a cargo service funded by the Irish Department of Transport, while another major compensation was a year-round daily air service, carrying passengers, mail and lightweight goods; the airline was partly state-owned. Service frequencies and other attributes are summarised in Table 3. When compared with the typical &rural transport' situation on the mainland, the most remarkable di!erence on the islands is the almost total irrelevance of car ownership. In other rural areas in Ireland and the rest of western Europe, questions of transport, mobility and accessibility rest upon the crucial social distinction between those people with and without the regular use of a car (Nutley and Thomas, 1992, 1995). The Irish islands are so small that, at least for able-bodied adults, all places are within walking distance of each other. Even on the largest island * Arranmore * the furthest inhabited places are only 5 km apart. The survey showed on the nine islands only 36% of house-

holds had a car, varying from near zero on Tory to over 70% on Cape Clear. Cars brought to the islands, often with considerable e!ort, are kept for many years, usually untaxed and uninsured, and used for every conceivable transport purpose; they end their days as rusting wrecks, littering the islands' environment. Tractors, bicycles and carts are also used for general purposes. In the 1980s an electric milk #oat was adapted for general use on Tory; in the early 1990s, London-type &black taxis' were seen on Clare Island and Arranmore. Now, some islands have one or two minibuses running informal taxi-like services. Motor vehicles on the islands make little contribution to overcoming the basic accessibility problem. Although two islands had vehicle ferries, the cost was a constraint on regular trips to the mainland. About 5% of respondents kept a car at the mainland ferry port, permitting easy onward transport. These were people whose work necessitated frequent travel on the mainland, or were relatively well-o! recent immigrants to the island community.

324

Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley

Accessibility It has already been noted that the islands have a low level of accessibility at the regional scale, relative to the whole of Ireland; this is easily demonstrated by conventional measures (Horner, 1982). It remains, however, very di$cult to represent adequately the severe deterrent e!ect of the unavoidable sea crossing. For example, Nutley (1979) assessed regional scale accessibility in the Scottish Highlands and Islands using network analysis and travel times, but such measures cannot do justice to the physical discontinuity, inconvenience and e!ort, involved in transferring from overland transport to a ferry. One would not expect simple measures to be e!ective. For the Irish islands, Barnhill (1983) devised an index of geographical isolation based on straight line distances to a number of points on the mainland, and this did appear to show an inverse correlation between &isolation' and depopulation up to the early 20th century. Trying to improve and update this, Cross (1995) measured actual route lengths from each island to numerous mainland points: the ferry port, the nearest town, the regional centre, Dublin, the nearest &A' road, the nearest railway station, and the nearest point of access to the local and national bus networks. No signi"cant relationship could be established with population trends on the respective islands. A similar exercise was attempted using the costs to the passenger of the ferry crossing plus public transport fares to the nearest town, but again no relationship could be found with island population trends. In considering accessibility from the islands to mainland destinations, it is apparent that simple linear distance, travel time or cost considerations are unlikely to be decisive in terms of the islands' population stability or economic prospects, and are unlikely to have any simple relationship with islanders' travel patterns. All islands are more or less equally remote in the regional sense, in terms of access to larger towns, provincial cities and Dublin. Regardless of the overall length of the intended journey, it is evident that most crucial is the local accessibility to the mainland ferry port. Note that a possible exception is Inisheer, which has a direct, but relatively long, ferry service to Galway city, the regional capital. Any measure of island accessibility has to concentrate on the means of crossing the water barrier, however short. It is bound to be a composite index, including quanti"able service factors but also many subjective aspects that contribute to the relative convenience or otherwise of attempting the journey. The relevant service indicators, at the time of the survey in 1990}1991, are displayed in Table 3. Wide

disparities in service levels between winter and summer, referred to above, require these to be stated separately. Construction of an accessibility index is based on the allocation of points values, even where the variables are quanti"able such as frequency and length (time) of crossing. Inclusion of the frequency of mail delivery is an indicator of information links with the outside world, and of the e!ectiveness of service provision, not necessarily equivalent to the frequency of ferries. Mail may be carried on ferries (or by air to Inisheer), but a contracted-out mail boat might not carry passengers. Particularly important are those aspects of the ferry service that determine the comfort, convenience and safety of the sea journey and reduce the perception of hazard. Ferries able to carry vehicles have great advantages, not merely for island car owners, but for mobile shop visits, ambulances, and for easy visits by local council and public utility maintenance services. Where frequency is less than twice per day, it should be checked whether it is possible to make a return trip to the mainland in one day allowing enough time to ful"l one's business. This would not be possible where the ferry makes an immediate return, or in cases where the ferry is mainland-based and makes only one return trip to the island. In such cases, the islander has to stay overnight on the mainland at great inconvenience. A Sunday service was considered important from the point of view of returning weekend visitors, such as boarding school or college students. Amongst other &convenience' factors is the ferry's susceptibility to tidal conditions. At the time of the survey, old and unsuitable piers on some islands prevented embarkation at low tide, severely restricting timetables, and sometimes requiring o!shore transfer to smaller craft. Passenger comfort was a vital factor a!ecting the propensity to make journeys, and conspicuously lacking on some ferries. The availability of cabin cover is used here as an indicator. On some boats the only shelter was the wheelhouse; passengers otherwise risked exposure to cold, rain, spray and diesel fumes, while possibly having to sit on a pile of "sh boxes. Older respondents in the survey admitted being strongly deterred by the discomfort of sea crossings. Also relevant is the availability of onward public transport from the mainland pier. Given the low car ownership and lack of vehicle ferries, arriving passengers need a bus, taxi or lift to get to their "nal destination. The "nal factor to be included is whether the ferry service was based on the island itself, run by a local person. This is highly desirable from the islanders' point of view, so that they have control over their physical link with the outside world, so that timetables are arranged for their convenience rather than for mainland-based tourists, and so that unscheduled or emergency trips can more readily be made.

Insularity and Accessibility In constructing an accessibility index, the question of equitable weighting of the points values is ultimately insoluble. To provide some consistency, for each service category a value of "ve was given to the standard thought to be the highest that could reasonably be expected, and others weighted relative to this. Points values were summed to produce accessibility scores for summer and winter separately (Table 3). A total score was derived by weighting the winter score by two to re#ect its greater length (October to May), and adding to the summer (June to September). Crude as this is, it is adequate as a numerical indicator of access opportunities and transport quality. The theoretical maximum is 111, or 96 for those islands without air service. High scores for Arranmore and Beare attest to the bene"ts of frequent vehicle ferries on short crossings. The next best group comprising Sherkin, Inisheer, Cape Clear and Inishbo"n, is characterised by high ferry frequencies in summer with associated bene"ts, but variable in winter. Inisheer's air service compensated poor winter ferries. Clare was generally weaker. Identi"able problem cases were Tory and Inishturk, the former su!ering from isolation and generally poor service, and the latter from the absence of any proper ferry. Insofar as relationships between island accessibility, population and materal well-being can be assessed by quantitative measures, the accessibility score will be used for correlation. Where the main interest is the di!erences among the islands, the small sample size (N"9), the ordinal scale of indices used, and the categorical nature of much of the data mean that only non-parametric tests are appropriate. Accordingly, relationships tested below are based on Spearman's rank correlation coe$cients. The accessibility score correlates signi"cantly with the island facility score (r"0.79) and with the 1991 popu-

325

lation (r"0.69). Facilities also correlate with population (r"0.91). This con"rms not only that the larger islands have better local services, but that they are also likely to have better transport links with the mainland. As is so often found in studies of rural accessibility elsewhere (e.g. Nutley and Thomas, 1992), larger places have better facilities, and there is no evidence that poor local services are compensated by better transport or vice versa. The only exception is Sherkin Island, where local services and accessibility seem better than its small population would justify. This population has, however, been increasing, the sea crossing is very short, and mainland connections are good. The fundamental hypotheses that island populations are more likely to be retained where accessibility is good, and that relative isolation is associated with depopulation, can now be tested. These suggestions cannot be substantiated: the accessibility score shows no correlation with population change 1971}1991 or 1981}1991, nor with the &population stability' index (see above). Closer inspection of the last of these suggests, however, that there might be a correlation were it not for two serious exceptions: Inishturk had a relatively stable population despite very poor accessibility, while Beare had a declining and &unstable' population despite easy access to the mainland. These two cases evoke the historical tendency for isolation to deter, and accessibility to encourage, depopulation.

Travel to the mainland The pattern of journeys from each island to the mainland (mobility) is expected to be in#uenced and constrained by the degree of accessibility provided by the transport facilities. Frequencies of mainland visits were derived from the 1990}1991 survey and are represented in Table 4. Travel is an individual, rather

Table 4. Frequency of journeys to the mainland, 1990}1991 % Persons making journeys Island Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands

Daily

Weekly

Every 2 weeks

Monthly

6}11 times per year

1}5 times per year

(1 trip per year

Total persons

Trips/ person/year

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 2.9

0.0 21.4 0.0 0.0 2.2 0.0 41.7 6.5 17.9 12.8

0.0 13.2 12.1 8.6 7.4 0.0 6.3 29.9 10.7 9.1

4.9 16.7 6.5 19.4 19.1 7.9 5.7 19.5 26.2 13.4

16.0 7.5 19.6 14.0 11.8 24.3 0.6 2.6 4.8 11.2

33.3 17.1 25.2 16.1 28.7 28.0 0.0 7.8 3.6 17.8

45.7 24.2 36.4 41.9 30.9 39.7 25.7 33.8 36.9 32.9

81 281 107 93 136 189 175 77 84 1223

3.0 17.7 6.4 6.2 7.2 3.9 76.1 13.9 15.7 19.5

Source: author's survey.

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than a household, activity, and thus all persons are accounted for. This explains the very high proportions travelling less than once per year, or not at all. These one might expect to be elderly people, young children, and those remaining at home while another member of the family goes away for supplies. Even discounting these, it is clear that mainland trips were generally made very infrequently, with just over half the islands' population travelling less than "ve times per year. Otherwise, monthly and weekly frequencies were most popular. It will be noted that variation was much greater among the islands than among the frequency categories. The proportion travelling daily from Beare Island was comprised mainly of pupils attending secondary school at the mainland port, taking advantage of the short, frequent ferry crossing. Weekly excursions were most popular on Beare and Arranmore, fortnightly on Sherkin, monthly on Inishturk and Cape Clear, and less than monthly on the four remaining islands. Subjectively, this pattern does seem to be related to the travel opportunities provided by the available transport. For correlation purposes, an overall index of levels of trip-making is more useful than the frequency distribution. Accordingly, by applying appropriate conversion factors it is possible to reconstruct the number of trips to the mainland likely to be made per year from each island. Hence, the trip rate is expressed as the number of trips per person per year (Table 4); results should be regarded as simulated averages. Beare Island generated by far the greatest potential trips, followed by an intermediate group comprising Arranmore, Cape Clear and Sherkin, with the other "ve islands having very low rates. These "gures certainly emphasise, and perhaps exaggerate, the variations in transport opportunities among the islands. A major problem in interpreting trip rates is that, as well as re#ecting travel opportunity, they also re#ect perceived need. Were those with low trip rates &deprived' in any way, or was there less need to travel, perhaps because of better facilities on the islands themselves or because of lifestyle adjustments? It would be useful to illustrate how low these trip rates are, in comparison with rural areas on the mainland. Equivalent surveys in Northern Ireland have shown typical trip rates, excluding short trips on foot, to be about 4.2 per week (Nutley and Thomas, 1992, 1995). This is a powerful testament to the barriers imposed by island life. Di$culties provoked by the marine barrier are by no means con"ned to the length (time) and cost of the ferry crossing. Disruptions due to bad weather and heavy sea conditions together with the perception of danger, discomfort and inconvenience, all contribute to a reluctance to travel. Of households with regular travellers, 23% reported su!ering ferry service cancel-

lations often or very often. The variation, however, was enormous, from zero in Sherkin and Beare to 79% in Tory. Sixty percent of households admitted being deterred from making as many trips as they would like, and although the biggest factor was cost, 25% cited subjective or psychological factors such as discomfort, unreliability and fear. As would be expected, island trip rates correlate significantly with the accessibility score (r"0.73). Some cases deserve comment at this stage. Beare and Arranmore had similar standards of transport to the mainland, but the former's trip rate was much higher. This was due to the schools tra$c mentioned above, and also due to better onward connections to inland towns. Inisheer's trip rate was much lower than its access score would suggest, partly due to poor service in winter, but also due to the fact that apparently good summer ferries were aimed at tourists and connected only with sparsely populated parts of the mainland. There is no correlation between trip rates and the facility score. One might expect that more trips to the mainland would be encouraged by poor facilities on the island, as in the case of Cape Clear, or conversely that a good range of services locally meant that trips to the mainland were less necessary, as in the case of Inisheer. But these are exceptions, and in general there is no evidence that need for travel, in this sense, is conclusive. It appears more likely that trips away from the island are in#uenced mainly by transport opportunities. Journey purposes disclosed by the survey are depicted in Table 5. These naturally re#ected the wide range of functions that could not be ful"lled on the islands. It is not at all surprising that shopping was the most prominent single activity, followed by &multi-purpose'. The latter re#ects the di$culties, and hence the infrequency, of trips to the mainland, in that rare expeditions were exploited to the full for purposes of shopping, personal business at a bank, a medical appointment, and probably a social visit involving an overnight stay. One might expect therefore a negative correlation between the proportion of multi-purpose trips and the trip rate, and this can indeed be veri"ed (r"!0.78). Conversely, the more mobile island populations were more likely to travel for specialised purposes: the proportion of shopping trips, for example, correlated signi"cantly with trip rate (r"0.72). Education trips refer to secondary and tertiary level, and inter-island variations must re#ect numbers of students in these categories; the local secondary schools on Arranmore and Inisheer were not accounting for all of this age group at the time of the survey. &Work' and &business' are not easily distinguished. Daily commuting would only be possible

Insularity and Accessibility

327

Table 5. Purpose of journeys to the mainland, 1990}1991 % Persons making journeys at least once per year Island Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands

School or college

Work

Shopping

Medical

Business

Social

Multipurpose

Total number person}trips

11.1 10.0 7.4 18.5 11.6 9.6 19.4 3.9 9.3 11.6

0.0 6.7 2.9 0.0 1.1 0.0 7.8 0.0 11.1 4.0

35.6 49.5 35.3 33.3 38.9 39.1 56.6 64.7 46.3 45.7

6.7 7.1 13.2 3.7 8.4 5.2 0.8 5.9 1.9 5.8

4.4 1.9 5.9 3.7 5.3 3.5 3.1 2.0 5.6 3.5

6.7 3.3 13.2 20.4 7.4 9.6 7.0 9.8 7.4 8.0

35.6 21.4 22.1 20.4 27.4 33.0 5.4 13.7 18.5 21.3

45 210 68 54 95 115 129 51 54 821

Source: author's survey.

from Beare and Arranmore, and it is doubtful whether anyone attempts this. In actuality, most &work' responses were accounted for by "shermen disposing of their catches, while &business' involved visits to banks, solicitors and wholesale merchants. The relative importance of medical and social trips obviously depend on personal circumstances, but the proportion of social trips (plus some more included under &multi-purpose') might be contrasted with the common "nding that in mainland rural areas leisure trips comprise about 30% of the total. Social and entertainment activities remained very much island-focused, illustrating the extent to which insularity enforces the localisation of activity. The ultimate destinations of mainland trips are shown in Table 6. The main conclusion to be drawn here is that in most cases a large majority of trips were concentrated on a single service centre. Only in the case of Beare Island is the ferry port (Castletownbeare) itself large enough to satisy most needs. Inisheer is the island nearest to a regional centre * Galway * with which it had one direct, and other indirect, transport connections. Otherwise, the mainland ferry ports are small settlements or isolated piers. The expected hierarchy, with a higher proportion of trips to the nearest town and a lower, but still signi"cant, proportion to a more distant but larger centre, appeared to be not very well developed. Inishbo"n and Arranmore came closest. Overall, it looks like the need to make a sea crossing had the e!ect of sti#ing &normal' hierarchical travel behaviour, and encouraging travellers to obtain needed goods and services at the nearest suitable place. Long distance trips, as might be expected, were extremely rare. The survey also asked how often such trips had been made in the previous year. Although 53% of households had visited the regional centre up

Table 6. Final destination of journeys to the mainland, 1990}1991 % Persons making journeys at least once per year

Island Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands

Ferry port

Total number Nearest Regional person town centre Elsewhere }trips

0.0 5.2 0.0 13.0 0.0 0.0 90.2 0.0 5.8 16.4

79.5 59.2 18.2 24.1 71.7 3.6 7.3 94.1 86.5 44.4

18.2 30.3 66.7 55.6 28.3 91.9 1.6 0.0 1.9 34.5

2.3 5.2 15.2 7.4 0.0 4.5 0.8 5.9 5.8 4.7

44 210 66 54 92 111 123 51 52 803

Source: author's survey.

to "ve times, only 13% had visited Dublin or Belfast with the same frequency, and only 4% had crossed over to England or Scotland. Such trips were probably for seasonal work, or to visit expatriate family members for special occasions.

An alternative view A reasonable objection is that the propensity to travel to the mainland is a!ected not so much by variations in accessibility and transport facilities, but by the social and economic characteristics of the people, regardless of which island they are living on. It is commonly found in mainland rural studies that elderly people and disadvantaged groups have lower mobility

328

Michael Cross and Stephen Nutley

rates, assumed to be symptomatic of &problems'. Work in Northern Ireland by Nutley and Thomas (1992, 1995) con"rmed that households without cars, households with one or more elderly people, households with no wage earners, and people living alone, have signi"cantly lower trip rates. To test this, the islands' survey population was divided into &household types', and trip rates re-calculated. Against an overall rate of 19.5 trips per person per year, there was a conspicuous gap between large households ("ve or more people) with 20.0 trips, and single-person households with 15.6. &Elderly households' had lower rates: with one elderly person, 13.4, and with two or more, 11.7. Households with two or more employed members had the higher rate of 25.6, but those with no wage earners had a rate of only 16.3. The expected variations therefore seem to be borne out. However, the disparities in trip rates among the islands (see above) appear to be greater than these variations among social groups, but unfortunately the form of the data did not permit this to be veri"ed statistically.

Perceptions In terms of the islands' future prospects, whether assessed by population growth or stability, development levels or living standards, it is di$cult to see the transport and accessibility factor as being anything other than crucial. It is of course the islanders' own assessment of their external communication links that is most important, not easily gauged by &objective' measures. Perceptions of transport conditions are recorded in Table 7. While there was near universal agreement that transport services had improved or greatly improved over the previous twenty years, there

were very wide variations in the perceived adequacy of those services at the time of the survey in 1990}1991. Widespread condemnation from Tory and Inishturk is understandable; there were clearly mixed feelings in Clare, Inishbo"n and Sherkin. Nevertheless, these perceptions do generally accord with transport standards as expressed through the access score (r"0.76). The main anomalies were the neighbouring islands of Sherkin and Cape Clear, with the former, despite being closer to the mainland, perceiving transport to be poorer than objective measures would suggest, and the latter, despite being more distant, apparently satis"ed with poorer service. This might be a case of expectations being proportional to distance or proximity, but satisfaction on Cape Clear is probably due to its having acquired a new boat shortly before the survey. Perhaps, too, factors other than transport were equally important, or more important. The survey requested opinions of all other island services. Despite population decline, there was widespread agreement that all types of service had improved over the last 20 years (Cross, 1996), probably against the trend in the rest of rural Ireland. The most widely appreciated improvements (80}90% of respondents) were in telephones, transport and electricity. The least (45}50%) were in social and postal facilities. Over all the islands, the contemporary approval rating (percent saying &adequate' or &very adequate') varied between social facilities (60%) and electricity (91%). &Inadequate' responses were signi"cant only for medical and transport (26}28%) and for retail and social (30}35%). Overall, therefore, there is no clear evidence that transport and accessibility factors were particularly problematic, when compared with other services: the particular source(s) of locally perceived problems can

Table 7. Perceptions of transport change and adequacy, 1990}1991 % Households Change over last 20 years

Island

Current standard

Deteriorated or greatly Improved or Inadequate or Adequate or very deteriorated greatly improved very inadequate adequate

Tory Arranmore Clare Inishturk Inishbo"n Inisheer Beare Sherkin Cape Clear All islands Source: author's survey.

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

58.8 98.8 73.7 61.9 96.2 100.0 96.8 80.8 83.3 88.5

100.0 14.4 44.7 80.9 26.4 18.6 3.1 30.7 3.1 28.2

0.0 85.6 55.2 19.0 73.6 81.5 95.3 69.2 90.6 71.1

Feel very or moderately isolated

Total households

97.1 33.3 39.5 52.4 41.5 48.2 11.1 42.3 23.3 39.6

34 90 38 21 53 54 64 26 32 412

Insularity and Accessibility only be discerned at the level of individual islands. Judging by the relative disapproval ratings, transport was the greatest source of discontent on Tory, Inishturk and Clare; on Inishbo"n, Cape Clear and Inisheer it was local shops, on Beare and Arranmore it was social activities, and on Sherkin it was medical provision. This leads to the question of overall community satisfaction with island life, the evidence so far suggesting that transport to the mainland must have a strong in#uence. Several indicators were available from the survey. The proportion of respondents feeling very or moderately isolated is listed in Table 7; this correlates weakly with the access score (r"!0.60) and not at all with the facility score. Respondents saying that island life was harder or much harder than on the mainland varied from 9.5% (Beare) to 94% (Tory). Those saying that island life was inconvenient or very inconvenient compared with the mainland varied from 23% (Cape Clear) to 97% (Tory). Both of these indicators correlate signi"cantly with the access score. Interpretation of the precise role of transport to the mainland, relative to other factors, cannot be conclusive, and although the evidence suggests that it was very important everywhere, for some islands it appeared to be decisive.

Conclusions and update Despite some improvements, small island communities remained strongly dependent on the mainland and still had to make adaptations to cope with inaccessibility, by maintaining varying degrees of self-reliance, behavioural adjustments and reduced expectations. Very low travel frequencies and trip rates, while not unexpected, demonstrated such a large disparity with those found from rural surveys on the mainland (if the latter can be regarded as the &norm'), that a high degree of deprivation must be the unavoidable conclusion. Islanders rationalised their limited travel opportunities by making multi-purpose trips, but fewer leisure trips, by concentrating on the nearest suitable service centre, and by making the most of social contacts on the mainland. Variations among the islands were explicable in terms of di!erential accessibility and transport service quality. While objective measures can only be interpreted within the context of perceived needs, the perception evidence, plus the "nding that many desirable trips could not be made, con"rms that transport was a widespread problem, amounting to hardship in some cases. The role played by transport and accessibility in determining island population trends, quality of life and development prospects cannot be "rmly established. If the &population stability index' is an acceptable surro-

329

gate for population trends, then there is no simple relationship with transport and accessibility to the mainland. The wider study from which this paper is derived (Cross, 1995) concluded also that population stability was not explicable by any other single factor such as island services, membership of the Gaeltacht, or possession of a community cooperative, but was apparently related only to the ability to earn a living. The idiosyncratic experience of speci"c islands was attributable to one or two dynamic individuals starting businesses, the strength of community organisation, fortuitous government grants, short term #uctuations in key economic sectors such as "shing and construction, or the environmental attractions for incoming settlers. Until recently, there has never been a comprehensive development programme which addressed the special problems of insularity. At local level, an umbrella group was formed in the mid-1980s to give Ireland's islands a collective voice (Hills, 1986; Royle, 1986). Ten years later, the national government produced a &strategic framework' (Government of Ireland, 1996), recommending inter alia a socially desirable minimum standard of ferry service. The islands are now recognised as a distinct policy target area, instead of being merely embraced by a general concern for &the West'. Since the survey of 1990}1991 there has been some progress, stimulated partly by a fatal accident to one of the ferries in 1994, notably a more reliable all-year boat service to Tory, new licensed ferries to Clare and Inishturk, and harbour works at various places. Tory Island has shown a remarkable transformation, due to the coincident innovations of the regular ferry in 1992 and the new hotel, built with international funding, in 1994. These depend on each other, and have brought in more visitors, income and employment, at least in summer. The population has risen from 119 in 1991 to an estimated 165 in 1996 (Irish ¹imes, 1997). Increasing numbers of day trippers now require a delicate balance to be struck between access, income and traditional community values; another island * Inishmore * has reputedly been &ruined' by easier access and tourist-led commercialism. Nevertheless, recent discussions with key personnel on various islands by Royle and Scott (1996) revealed a universal clamour for better transport links. Despite the "ndings above that transport factors cannot be related directly with population trends or development chances, there is a widespread understanding that the former is a necessary condition for the latter. E!ective local development needs the coordination of transport improvement with island-based enterprise. Acknowledgements * The work on which this article is based was co-supervised by Dr Colin Thomas of the University of Ulster.

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