Entrepreneurship in Ireland: The Global, European and Irish Contexts.

Embedded in the EU rural development concept is the overall objective of maintaining viable rural communities. (European Commission, Directorate General for Agriculture 1997 (B). It is acknowledged at EU and national level that this cannot be achieved by agriculture alone, or by traditional methods, for example, tourism, or other low profit, low skill based alternative farm enterprises. The EU Commission believe that the key to the sustainable development of rural regions lies in the development of an independent perspective, the discovery of indigenous potential and the exchange of experience with other regions, but not in the copying of development perspectives for other regions in the EU. This thesis on rural micro entrepreneurship is our response in the development of an independent perspective for rural Ireland that includes the identification of and the means of nurturing the entrepreneurial potential of rural persons by distinguishing entrepreneurs from enterprising persons with the discovery of “what it is” that compels, entices or persuades a person to undertake entrepreneurial activity in a rural area a key component of the research. The thesis ends with the outlining of a new way forward for rural micro entrepreneurship