What do AI, Ballinrobe, Brussels, Clarke Windows and Chaos have in common?
Answer - 3 months in the work of the Dargan Institute, Dun Laoghaire! From the technical masterclasses of UK AI Week in October to the policy corridors of the Dáil in November, and from the grassroots regeneration of Ballinrobe to the high-level strategy sessions of the European Digital SME Alliance in Brussels in December, a unified theme is clear from our mission at the Dargan Institute, a theme of empowerment, of “Doing What you Can With What You’ve Got!”. Whether it is empowering a rural town to repurpose a vacant bank, empowering a small business to automate drudgery through AI, or empowering the European continent to control its own digital destiny, the objective remains consistent. Here’s how we at the Dargan Institute pursued that objective across seven key strategic interventions in late 2025. This work built on the momentum of early 2025 so we have included a brief overview of this too.
July 2nd & 3rd - DARGAN FORUM 2025
Dargan Forum 2025 was our most successful yet with 12 events featuring 65 speakers over two days in Dún Laoghaire. that brought together over 60 speakers to champion Ireland’s "twin transition"—the green and digital future.
November 13th: A Milestone in Ballinasloe - 400th hub announced at the Connected Hubs Summit
The summit's defining moment was the announcement by Minister for Rural and Community Development, Dara Calleary TD, regarding the onboarding of the 400th hub to the ConnectedHubs.ie platform. The designation of the Monksland Innovation Hub in Co. Roscommon as this landmark facility marked the achievement of a key deliverable of "Our Rural Future" ahead of schedule.
The significance of reaching 400 hubs cannot be overstated. It indicates that the network has moved beyond the "pilot" phase to become a piece of critical national infrastructure, comparable in strategic importance to the rural electrification schemes of the past century. This network now provides a "digital safety net" across the country, ensuring that no region is excluded from the knowledge economy due to geography.
Case Study: The Ballinasloe Enterprise Hub (BEH)
The choice of Ballinasloe as the host town was particularly apposite. The Ballinasloe Enterprise Hub (BEH), located in a repurposed Bank of Ireland building on Society Street, stands as a physical manifestation of the Dargan Institute's research into "repurposing vacant state-owned buildings".
During the summit and the launch event the preceding evening, the success of this hub was showcased through the experiences of its tenants. Lyn Donnelly, the hub manager, has overseen the transformation of a vacant financial institution into a vibrant engine of local enterprise.
November 28th: Community Grassroots Regeneration – Ballinrobe Town Hall
"A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out"
Following the high-level policy work in Dublin, activity returned to the grassroots on November 28 with a site tour of the Ballinrobe Town Hall project. This initiative serves as a powerful case study in community-led urban regeneration and aligns perfectly with the Dargan Institute's research on repurposing vacant buildings.
The Valkenburg Project
The project centres on the redevelopment of the Valkenburg building, a historic complex on Ballinrobe’s Main Street, acquired by the community in 2020. Led by Chairperson Michael Sweeney and PRO Liam Horan , the committee has adopted a philosophy of self-reliance encapsulated in their slogan: "We want a hand up, not a hand out".
The tour revealed both the scale of the ambition and the "chaos" of the execution environment. The project has successfully secured over €4.5 million from the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF). The appointment of a top-tier professional team, including KSN Project Management and Taylor McCarney Architects , signals that this is a capital project of significant technical complexity.
The Economic Anchor
The vision for the Valkenburg is to transform it into a multifunctional community facility featuring a 300-seater theatre, catering facilities, and meeting spaces. In the context of rural regeneration this facility has the clear potential to show what an economic anchor repurposed vacant buildings can be for our towns across Ireland. It is designed to generate footfall that will spill over into the surrounding businesses, reversing the vacancy that plagues many provincial towns.
Ballinrobe’s Cultural Capital: The Harry Clarke Windows
Someone has put a lot of effort into assembling a superb introduction to the cultural significan and points of interest of Ballinrobe through the website Historical Ballinrobe. A poignant interlude during the Ballinrobe visit was the viewing of the Harry Clarke stained glass windows in St. Mary's Church. These masterpieces, along with those later viewed in Cong (St. Mary of the Rosary) , represent the immense cultural capital embedded in Ireland's towns. The windows—depicting scenes such as "The Assumption" and "The Coronation"—are not just religious artefacts; they are economic assets. They draw tourism and define the unique character of the place. The integration of this heritage with the modern utility of the new Town Hall creates a compelling "place branding" proposition for Ballinrobe, proving that the future of rural towns lies in a fusion of the historic and the innovative.
October 23rd: Helping Small Businesses at UK AI Week
The Imperative of the Digital Growth Mindset
Q4 for the Dargan Institute began not in Ireland, but in the digital sphere of the United Kingdom. On October 23, 2025, the Dargan Institute delivered a masterclass as part of UK AI Week, a seminal event designed to bridge the gap between high-level artificial intelligence capability and the operational reality of small businesses. The session, titled "Accelerating your Business Growth through The Digital Growth Mindset," laid the groundwork for the practical advocacy that would follow in Ireland and Brussels.
Constructing a Digital Exoskeleton for Small Businesses
Our masterclass introduced the concept of the "Digital Exoskeleton". This metaphor challenges the traditional view of digital tools as mere "add-ons" or administrative aids. Instead, it posits that a modern enterprise must wrap a structural layer of digital capability around its human core. Just as a biological exoskeleton provides protection and creates leverage for physical exertion, the digital exoskeleton provides the data analytics, automation, and reach necessary for a small team to compete with global giants.
This engagement at UK AI Week served to position the Dargan Institute's work within the vanguard of international thinking on SME digitalization. It underscored that the challenges facing businesses in Dun Laoghaire or Ballinasloe are mirrored across the Irish Sea, and that the solutions require a fundamental re-engineering of how business owners think about value creation in the digital age.
November 27 - Meeting of the Fine Gael Small Business Council
On November 27, the focus moved from regional implementation to legislative advocacy. A pivotal meeting of the Fine Gael Small Business & Enterprise Council took place at Fine Gael Headquarters and the Dáil. This engagement involved direct dialogue with key political figures, including James Geoghegan T.D, John Clendennen TD and Joseph Neville TD , and occurred against the backdrop of a growing "crisis of confidence" within the indigenous SME sector.
The "Backing Business" Report
The discussions were framed by the findings of Deputy Clendennen's report, "Backing Business: A Budget Blueprint for SMEs". The data presented to the Council was stark: two out of three Irish SMEs expressed a lack of confidence in their ability to survive the current economic climate. This sentiment is driven by a "perfect storm" of rising labour costs, energy volatility, and an accumulating regulatory burden.
This engagement at the Dáil demonstrated the vital link between the experiences on the ground (in hubs and town halls) and the formulation of policy. It reinforced the Dargan Institute's role as a conduit for "ground truth" to reach the ears of decision-makers.
November 28th-30th: Intellectual Synthesis at Congregation
Exploring "Chaos" in Cong
From the practicalities of construction in Ballinrobe, the journey continued to the village of Cong for Congregation 2025, the annual "unconference". This unique gathering, where every attendee is a speaker who earns their ticket through a written submission, focused this year on the theme of "Chaos".
Our Submission: "Chaos and the Status Quo"
The Dargan Institute's contribution to the unconference was a paper titled "Chaos and the Status Quo". This submission provided the philosophical glue binding the month's activities together.
The paper posited that the current economic environment—characterized by the "perfect storm" of AI disruption, regulatory burden, and cost inflation—is a chaotic system. However, rather than fearing this chaos, the paper argued that it should be embraced as a necessary catalyst. The "status quo" of incremental policy change is no longer sufficient to save rural economies or indigenous SMEs.
Synopsis: "This disruption threatens mass job displacement... drains value from local communities... Chaos becomes the necessary catalyst: forcing institutions to abandon inertia, embrace local digital ecosystems, activate community hubs, and fund grassroots transformation before Ireland is permanently overtaken by global technological forces."
In the "huddles" (small group discussions) throughout Cong village, this thesis was debated. The consensus was that the structures built during stable times (traditional education, centralized FDI policy) are ill-equipped for the chaotic times ahead. The "agile" and "distributed" models—like the Connected Hubs network and the Digital SME Alliance—are the evolutionary responses to this chaos in our opinion.
December 2nd-4th: The European Dimension in Brussels
Eoin Costello and Sebastiano Toffaletti
Constructing Tech Sovereignty for the EU
The whirlwind of activity culminated in Brussels at the European Digital SME Alliance Annual Conference, held at the European Economic and Social Committee. This summit represented the macro-strategic level of the Dargan Institute's work, connecting local Irish initiatives to continental policy.
As an Ambassador for the Alliance, Eoin Costello represented the Dargan Institute at the high-level networking at the "Brussels Bourse" dinner and the following day’s conference with key figures like Sebastiano Toffaletti (Secretary General), Dave Feenan, and Ken Finnegan.
December 6th: A Personal Milestone
Amidst this intense schedule of professional engagement, a personal milestone was celebrated on December 6th. The Dargan Institute's Director, Eoin Costello, marked his 60th birthday at the Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club (DMYC).
The event was attended by family, including his son Killian, and a gathering of friends and colleagues who have been part of the journey. The evening featured a "fun trivia table quiz" hosted by Mick Quinn (which was won by Dermot Casey’s team) and live music by Des Geraghty.
This celebration in Dun Laoghaire was symbolic. It took place in the very town that the Dargan Institute strives to revitalize, surrounded by the community that underpins all such efforts. It served as a moment of reflection on the longevity required to drive systemic change. The transition from the early days of digital advocacy to the current sophisticated landscape of AI and regional hubs represents decades of continuity, now celebrated at this 60-year mark.
