Pandemic rural residential mobilities? Towards an understanding of who moved house and why in rural Ireland

A growing body of research has emerged in recent years examining the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of cities, regions and rural places. This includes examining the potential for decentralised housing demand – an urban exodus – as households adapted to a post-pandemic society. This article examines ‘pandemic mobilities’ in the context of rural housing demand in Ireland. Based on survey data across three case study areas, the article compares pre- and post-pandemic ‘movers’ to examine any differences in types of households moving or changes in the motivations of relocating households. Rather than an urban exodus, our research indicates that rural residential mobility is diverse and is often driven by return migration or local mobility, influenced by pre-existing family networks. The pandemic did not appear to be a driver of rural residential change but emerged as an enabling factor (e.g. working remotely) or as an accelerator for planned relocation decisions. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0 .