Community Wealth Building for Dublin

The Bohemian Cooperatives May Day Launch

Bohemian Football Club is launching A New Strategy to help communities in Dublin own more of the local economy, with support from President Catherine Connolly and former President Mary Robinson.

Cooperatives

The Bohemian Cooperatives: Building Community Wealth has been developed by Bohs in partnership with Community Foundation Ireland. It aims to create a community-owned organisation that helps local people build and grow cooperatives, mutuals and other community businesses in Dublin.

The strategy builds on Bohemians’ 135-year history as a fan-owned football club. It asks what other parts of the local economy communities could own, shape and benefit from.

The strategy is based on the belief that the economy should work better for people, communities and the planet. It aims to give local people more say, more ownership and a fairer share of the wealth created around them.

The strategy will serve as the focal point at a Civil Society Summit on Community Wealth Building and Just Transition at Richmond Education Centre, today, May Day (1st May 2026).

The summit will be attended by President Catherine Connolly and co-hosted by Friends of the Earth and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The launch week is supported by Dublin City Council

Community Wealth Building is already shaping local and regional economic development in places including Preston in England, Cleveland in the United States, and Scotland, where Community Wealth Building is now being advanced through national legislation. Dublin City Council adopted Community Wealth Building as a strategy in 2021.

The idea traces its roots to international cooperative models such as Mondragon in the Basque Country, where a network of worker-owned cooperatives now employs tens of thousands of people and generates billions in revenue each year.

The launch week will bring leading international practitioners to Ireland, including Joe Guinan, President of The Democracy Collaborative, Ted Howard, who helped develop the Cleveland model and supported the development of the Bohemians’ strategy, Neil McInroy, a leading advocate of the approach in Scotland, and Matthew Brown, who led the work in Preston.

They will take part in roundtables with local government representatives, national politicians, civil society organisations and community leaders to explore what Ireland can learn from international experience.

The strategy sets out a practical plan for building community wealth in Dublin. The first step is to establish The Bohemian Cooperatives as a community-owned organisation supporting new cooperatives, mutuals and community enterprises. Its free community and vocational education work will provide a gateway for the local community to get involved.

The first two proposed projects are an insurance mutual and a food cooperative focused on school meals. Both are intended to be developed during the three-year start-up phase.

In her foreword to the strategy, former President Mary Robinson writes:

“Ireland, like so many countries, is living through a time of deep and overlapping challenges. We are witnessing rising inequality, climate and biodiversity breakdown, and a widening sense that too many people feel shut out of the decisions that shape their lives.

At such a moment, incremental thinking will not suffice. We need imagination, courage, and a renewed willingness to draw on the wisdom carried in our collective traditions and to build solutions from the ground up.

Seán McCabe, of Bohemian Football Club, said:

“Bohs has survived and grown because generations of people believed the club belonged to them and acted on that belief.

There is a lesson in that for us all. At a time when many people feel the economy is something done to them, rather than something they can shape, we need practical ways for people to take back agency.

This strategy is about building that agency. It is about moving from concern to ownership, from goodwill to institutions, and from isolated community projects to a serious community wealth building ecosystem.”

Denise Charlton, Chief Executive of Community Foundation Ireland, said:

At a time of uncertainty and complexity the Community Foundation and its philanthropists recognise the need for ambition, courage and leadership.

The launch of this strategy is a beacon of hope and optimism serving as a counterbalance to the polarisation, division and democratic disillusionment evident in local communities here and across the globe. We look forward to exciting times ahead.”

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