BIOGRAPHY
Briain Smyth is an Irish entrepreneur and rural development leader with 30 years of experience spanning media, energy, agri-business, and sustainability. A native of Moate, County Westmeath, he takes up the role of Chief Executive Officer of Irish Rural Link on 1 April 2025.
Briain cut his teeth in the Irish media industry during the 1990s and early 2000s, gaining broad experience across print media, magazines, digital media, media events, and press monitoring for government and public sector clients. He then moved into renewable energy development, working across biomass, bioenergy and agricultural feedstocks from the mid-2000s onwards.
He co-founded Biotricity, developing large-scale combined heat and power projects using agricultural biomass — both in Ireland and in France. Among his most significant contributions during this period was the formulation in 2018 of an early vision for the redevelopment of the former ESB peat-fired power station at Rhode, County Offaly, as a green energy hub — a concept that has since evolved into a broader national policy objective for the just transition of former peat communities. Working across two jurisdictions over more than two decades, he brought complex energy projects from concept through planning, permitting, and grid connection to commercial readiness, before successfully completing their sale to international institutional investors in 2022.
Following the sale, Briain worked as an independent energy and sustainability consultant through Crannog Consultancy, advising on renewable energy development, rural community energy projects, and the intersection of agricultural land use with the energy transition.
Rooted in the farming and rural community of County Westmeath, Briain brings to Irish Rural Link a deep understanding of the practical, economic, and policy challenges facing rural Ireland — as well as the commercial and strategic experience to pursue ambitious solutions. He lives in Moate with his spouse.
STATEMENT FROM BRIAIN SMYTH, CEO, IRISH RURAL LINK
“It is a genuine honour to take up the leadership of Irish Rural Link at what is a pivotal moment for rural Ireland. Rural communities are not peripheral to this country’s future — they are central to it. The talent, the land, the energy resources, and the community spirit that exist outside our cities represent one of Ireland’s greatest untapped strengths.
Irish Rural Link has spent more than three decades giving voice to those communities — challenging policy that fails them, and championing the people, the places, and the networks that make rural Ireland work. I am immensely proud to continue that mission.
I come to this role with both a deep personal connection to rural Ireland and a career built on turning ambition into reality — often in the face of policy environments that were slow to catch up with what communities and people could see clearly. I know what it means to advocate for
change from the ground up, and I know what it takes to bring people, resources, and institutions together around a shared purpose.
I want to pay particular tribute to Séamus Boland, whose leadership of Irish Rural Link over more than two decades has built this organisation into the authoritative national voice for rural communities that it is today. Séamus leaves an extraordinary legacy — one I inherit with great respect and no small sense of responsibility. His election in October 2025 as the 35th President of the European Economic and Social Committee is a remarkable achievement and a testament to the respect he has earned across European civil society. That rural Ireland now has one of its own leading European civil society at the highest level is both a tribute to Séamus personally and a powerful signal of what organised, determined advocacy can achieve. I look forward to working closely with him in his new role, ensuring that the voice of rural Ireland is heard not just at home, but at the heart of Europe.
My priority as CEO will be to listen first — to Irish Rural Link’s member organisations, to communities across every county, and to the policymakers and funders whose decisions shape rural life. From that foundation, I want to build an agenda that is ambitious, evidence-based, and grounded in the realities of the people we represent. I look forward to bringing new ideas and innovative solutions into the public realm — to challenge the prevailing narrative, to open fresh debate, and to work together with communities, with government, and with civil society on how we rebuild the towns, villages and parishes that have been devastated by decades of service withdrawal. The conversation about rural Ireland’s future must be bolder, and Irish Rural Link intends to lead it.
Rural Ireland is not asking for charity. It is asking for a fair deal in the transitions that are reshaping this country — the energy transition that is already transforming our landscape, the environmental challenges that fall disproportionately on rural communities and rural land, and the economic transitions that must deliver real jobs and real opportunity outside our cities. At the same time, too many rural communities continue to lose the services and the people that sustain them — depopulation and the hollowing out of local services remain among the most acute and underacknowledged challenges facing rural Ireland today. Rural communities must be partners in these changes, not bystanders to them. Irish Rural Link will be an unambiguous voice for that partnership, and I look forward to leading that work.”
KEY FACTS
About Irish Rural Link
• Founded in 1991, Irish Rural Link (IRL) is Ireland’s national network for rural community development and advocacy.
• IRL directly represents over 600 community groups with a combined membership of 25,000 people.
• Headquartered in Moate Business Park, Moate, County Westmeath.
• IRL campaigns on issues including rural transport, digital inclusion, housing, healthcare access, community energy, and EU rural policy.
• Funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development, the Department of Agriculture, and EU programmes including Erasmus+ and PEACEPLUS.
• IRL has an active presence at European level through the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and European rural networks.
About Briain Smyth
• Native of Moate, County Westmeath.
• 30 years’ experience across media, agri-business, renewable energy development, and sustainability consulting.
• Early career in the Irish media industry spanning print media, magazines, digital media, media events, and press monitoring for government and public sector clients.
• Co-founded Biotricity, developing biomass combined heat and power projects in Ireland and France, including the first agricultural biomass CHP project to receive a French government Contract for Difference.
• Formulated an early vision in 2018 for the redevelopment of the former ESB peat station at Rhode, County Offaly as a green energy hub — a concept that has since become part of the national just transition policy framework for former peat communities.
• Successfully exited energy projects through sale to international institutional investors in 2022.
• Former independent energy and sustainability consultant (Crannog Consultancy).
• Appointed CEO of Irish Rural Link with effect from 1 April 2025.
