It was the delivery of a visionary energy project which showed that our fragile new State could stand on its own two feet. Ireland’s first government put everything it had behind a plan from a young Irish engineer to electrify the country with power from the river Shannon. We thought we were on the cusp of a similar revolution three years ago when the Shannon Estuary taskforce report was launched at Ardnacrusha. It committed us to having 2 gigawatts (GW) of Atlantic offshore wind power in development by 2030 and 30GW installed by 2050, setting up the midwest as a clean industrial centre and guaranteeing our prosperity for the next hundred years. Some politicians here sold the false promise that floating offshore wind could take off immediately.

Source: The Irish Times January 27, 2026 12:03 UTC