Over the last five years some 176 bank branches around the country have closed. Many closures were incremental and building up a clear picture of what has happened in towns and villages across the State is difficult, not least as there was no way to look in detail at this structural change in the provision of bank services.
With this in mind, The Irish Times journalists have assembled and mapped the data on all the bank branch in the State closures since 2018 to create an interactive map allowing readers explore changes in the provision of branch banking in their community.
What the map shows is that following the closures, towns such as Granard, Co Longford and Cootehill Co Cavan are now up to 20km from their nearest bank branch.
Creating the data set required the sourcing and checking data from all the banks operating in this market and then mapping these closed branches.
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The longitude and latitude of each bank location was used to identify the address of the banks.
The data show the largest number of banks closed between 2021 and 2023 with the closure of multiple Bank of Ireland branches and Ulster Bank branches, respectively.
Once the data was verified the above interactive map was built using the visualisation tool Tableau, which provides street-level detail and the ability to present the closures by bank and by year.
Distinguishing closures by bank and year allows readers to trace any decline in bank branch services in their area.
The map also shows the location of remaining bank branches.
This interactive map formed part of our reporting around the closure of the final Ulster Bank branches in April 2023.
