A priest in a rural parish in Co Donegal has highlighted the growing problem of depopulation in the area by reading from the altar some grim statistics for his parish in the past year.
Father John Gallagher of Kilcar in south-west Donegal said that of 11 couples married in the parish in 1999, not one now lived in the area. Deaths of elderly people meant that 13 houses had been closed over the past 12 months.
In the early 1970s, there were seven national schools in the parish, but now there was only one, in the village of Kilcar. There were some 160 pupils but eight years ago, when Father Gallagher arrived in Kilcar, there were 215 children at national school.
"It gets lonely for everybody when there are so many houses with only one person in them, and there are quite a number more where there are two fairly elderly people," Father Gallagher said.
The main problem was that there was little employment for people with third-level qualifications.
About 70 per cent of the young people in the parish went on to study at universities or institutes of technology.
"Young people go away to study and then there is no work for them to come back to. They are listening to reports of employers looking for workers in other areas and, when they hear that, they are not going to sit at home," Father Gallagher said.
While Kilcar was traditionally a strong Gaelic football area, it was becoming increasingly difficult to field a team, he added.
It is one of the most scenic regions of Donegal, and there is no shortage of people who want to buy holiday homes. There is tourism-related work for three months during the summer in addition to work at a number of small textile and fish factories.
The ratio of holiday homes to houses occupied full time is increasing all the time. There are now 200 houses which are either holiday homes or lying idle, while some 400 houses are lived in full time.
Practically all the houses being built are holiday homes.
Father Gallagher said he believed there was little prospect of the trend being reversed unless employment was provided for third-level graduates.
One problem was the poor roads network in the area. Lorries going to local fish factories had to negotiate "small bridges built originally for donkeys and carts".