How can we create a socially sustainable future for tourism, and provide places for people to live in their own communities? Tourism has become vital for many places in the west of Ireland, providing customers and opportunities for everything from hotels and restaurants to arts and crafts. The annual influx of visitors has revitalised towns all along the ‘Wild Atlantic Way, sustaining many small businesses in areas once blighted by immigration and poverty. But the success of tourism has also brought social pressures, most notably through a housing crisis exacerbated by the proliferation of second homes and holiday lets. For young people in particular, finding somewhere to live in their own area has become impossible, leading to a youth exodus that endangers the social future of many communities, and the cultural future of Gaelic areas, with the Irish language speakers increasingly priced out by holidaymakers. At the same time, declines in tourist numbers caused by high prices and a lack of accommodation are also sounding alarm bells for many local businesses.

Today, three people from very different backgrounds share their stories and ideas with me: Peadar Ó Fionnáin is a local doctor in Dingle, where he also co-directs the annual arts festival Féile Na Bealtaine and is the local organiser for the Green Party, for whom he campaigns on housing and sustainability issues. Lynn Dyer is an activist in Cornwall, where she is director of the community food project Growing Links in Penzance, where she also directs the town's Street Food Project. And Didi Ronan is co-founder of NATIVE, a regenerative hospitality project in Ballydehob in West Cork, offering both a guest house and sustainably built cabins. She previously worked as a policy analyst for the OECD. They joined our regular host Chris Kissane in front of a live audience at Ireland's Edge in Dingle.

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From genocide to corruption, it is increasingly hard to escape the feeling that in geopolitics today, anything goes. Recent months have seen an extraordinary breakdown in the norms of international affairs. The controversial return of Donald Trump to the White House has repositioned America and damaged the Western Democratic Alliance that has dominated transatlantic affairs for a century. The impunity of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and Lebanon, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the civil wars in Yemen and Sudan continue to horrify and shock the world. On this episode we hear from three expert voices who share their perspectives on what is to come. Carole Cadwalladr is an Orwell Prize-winning journalist whose work on big data and secret money behind the Brexit and Trump campaigns brought her international attention and a campaign of legal harassment from wealthy Brexiteers. Hannah McCarthy won an Irish Journalism Award for her foreign coverage, which has included reporting from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and the US election campaign. And Donnacha Ó Beacháin is a professor of politics at Dublin City University. At Ireland's Edge in Dingle, they joined John Naughton, Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University, and longtime friend of Ireland's Edge. This conversation took place in December last year, before the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency.

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On the day of Ireland's general election in December 2024, the longtime leader of the Green Party Eamon Ryan sat down with Chris Kissane at Ireland’s Edge. Marking the end of his political tenure after 25 years, and with his party’s prospects looking bleak, Eamon and Chris discussed why it’s not easy being green.

Junior partners in two major coalition governments over the last 15 years, the Greens brought issues of climate change and sustainability to the centre of Irish political debate and Eamon's various ministerial portfolios have ranged from transport to energy to communications. But there has been a major political backlash against green politics both home and abroad despite a global environmental crisis that only continues to worsen.

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