Applications open for ACORNS 12 for female entrepreneurs in Louth
Participants interact with each other in the monthly round table sessions
Minister for Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, Martin Heydon TD, opened the call for applications for ACORNS 12 yesterday, Monday 27th July. The deadline for applications is midnight on Friday, September 18, 2026.
Minister Heydon said: “My Department has supported Female Rural Entrepreneurs under the Rural Innovation Development Fund for over a decade. To date more than 600 women in rural Ireland have completed a cycle of the ACORNS programme.”
The Minister added: “ACORNS has consistently provided the skills, and capability needs that female entrepreneurs require when embarking on their business journey. I am acutely aware of the difficulties that entrepreneurial women can come up against when attempting to start new businesses, especially in rural areas, and the ACORNS programme is a real, tangible, mechanism to mitigate and overcome these challenges.”
Minister Heydon concluded by saying: “It brings me great pleasure to launch, once again, this innovative and progressive programme that aims to bring about real change in our rural economy, breathes life into our country towns and villages and assists women across rural Ireland to begin and grow their budding businesses.”
ACORNS, which stands for Accelerating the Creation of Rural Nascent Start-ups, is in its 12th year. It is funded through the Rural Innovation and Development Fund by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The programme, which was developed by Fitzsimons Consulting, is based on the belief that early-stage entrepreneurs learn best from their peers. Participants will interact with each other and will be facilitated by Lead Entrepreneurs.
Feedback from the most recent cycle underlines the value of taking part. All 53 participants who completed ACORNS 11 said they would recommend ACORNS to others, while 98% felt closer to achieving their business ambitions following the programme and 94% said their participation had brought about practical change within their business.
Nine businesses began trading for the first time during the last ACORNS cycle. The combined annual turnover of ACORNS 11 participants grew from €4.1m to almost €6m, while the number of people employed by participants rose by 59 to a total of 134 by the end of the cycle. There were also four new exporters among participants by the end of the six-month cycle.
Participants interact with each other in the monthly round table sessions, which are facilitated by a Lead Entrepreneur with first-hand experience of starting and successfully growing a business in rural Ireland. The programme is available to early-stage female entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland who have generated sales no earlier than the end of June 2023. There are up to 50 places available. Those wishing to apply must first register their interest via the website (www.acorns.ie). They will then be sent an application by email.