Mass dereliction and vacancy blights almost all Irish market towns. You’ve seen it for yourself: once bustling commercial centres are lifeless, hollowed out by dilapidation and urban neglect. As shopping places, most towns are barely hanging on and the more we insist that ground floors be reserved for retail space, the more widespread the sense of abandonment will become. The future of shops is not the main street, but that doesn’t mean the main street has no future, it just has one that looks different.

Shopping in the 21st century is not like shopping in the 20th or 19th centuries when most of our market towns were built. According to Eurostat, 96 per cent of Irish internet users made online purchases in 2024, the highest share in the European Union. We are rejecting the idea of the local town as a retail destination but people still want to live, socialise and hang out in towns. Is there a way to achieve this and the attendant footfall, without forcing all ground floors to be shops? What about abandoning the notion that shops should be at street level?

This week, the State nudged its way towards this by announcing a new plan that will encourage businesses to move into vacant shopfronts in towns. Rolled out across 26 designated town centres, the initiative will target empty retail properties. Rather than shops, the new plan envisages that businesses or services might move in instead. Welcome as this is, it is not enough and probably has more to do with the fact that business rates pay a chunk of county council revenue, which councils want more than innovative new town planning.

[ A small town in Co Kerry and a formula for rejuvenating rural IrelandOpens in new window ]

Most towns in Europe were originally derived from medieval constructs, built around commercial fairs where farmers bought and sold their produce. Around such markets, basic urban life, with artisans, money lenders,........

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