This is a significant move by the CRU and shows the risks of embedding data centres further into our grid. The response by the industry also highlights that tech companies are not 'good energy citizens' that will provide public services for free. 1/2 www.businesspost.ie/tech/irish-e...

Irish energy regulator: Data centres pose ‘urgent and serious risk’ to grid security

businesspost.ie

Pat Brodie, @seanfearon.bsky.social and me on why the north must not follow the south in becoming a data centre haven. 'In an era of widespread social deprivation and ecological crises, we need a radical change in economic and industrial policy.' www.irishnews.com/opinion/stor...

Stormont should change course and resist data centre gold rush

Irish academics Seán Fearon, Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie argue that the north must learn lessons from the south, where data centres now consume almost a quarter of the state’s electricity

irishnews.com

The study also suggests that nearly 50,000 homes could have been built, or tens of thousands of jobs created across education, health or social sectors, if the resources used to expand data centres were directed elsewhere. jrnl.ie/7165266t

Government report on data centres was 'flawed' and 'exaggerated', new research claims

The study also suggests that nearly 50,000 homes could have been built if the resources in the data centre build-out were directed elsewhere.

jrnl.ie

Myself, Seán Fearon and Pat Brodie have published a report today examining the exaggerated benefits and significant costs of data centres to Ireland. Below is a short thread on some of the key takeaways. Read the full report here: mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/21... 1/6

🚨 Today we're launching our new working paper, evaluating the social, economic and environmental costs of runaway data centre development in Ireland. 'How we all pay for Big Tech' assesses the direct, indirect and opportunity costs of data centre expansion to Irish society. Read and share!

Our new report is adding to a growing base of evidence pushing back against the madness of runaway data centre development in Ireland. Who pays the costs? Why exaggerate the benefits? Who benefits anyway? Irish society and ecology is paying a huge cost so Big Tech can build extraordinary wealth.

Richard Chambers@newschambers.bsky.social · last wk.

Exclusive: New report says Ireland could have built 50,000 new homes over the five years of the data centre boom - and cannot “afford” to continue building. Authors called for a moratorium on new data centres - and have hit out at government comparisons painting them as “our German car industry.”

'To make the government look like the good guy, Harris has to make it seem like there’s some malevolent cohort of lazy, gadabout ne’er-do-wells out there, and the budget will finally rescue us from them. The only problem is that no such cohort exists in any meaningful way." Surrealing:

We can never get up early enough to truly satisfy them

This week’s targets include poor children, imaginary lazy people and, of course, immigrants.

thejournal.ie

“It takes no courage to scapegoat those without power in society, but it demands a lot to resist the pull of reaction because you know it is morally right and socially sensible to do so.”

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 3w ago

Jim O’Callaghan can look to UK to see if making life hard for immigrants helps integration

A new ESRI report shows 200,000 children in Ireland are living below the poverty line. That figure rises to 260,000 when housing costs are taken into account, while 10% of children experience deprivation because they cannot afford essential goods and services. #VMNews

The urge became too strong.

Simon McGarr@tupped.bsky.social · 4w ago

I urgently wish to know what the Values of Ireland are.

A national disgrace. At a recent event, Simon Harris, boosting the gov's new investment scheme, repeatedly said the goal is to increase the "wealth of households". I wrote angrily in my notes: *whose* households??! The track record has been building wealth inequality. www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

Rise in child poverty despite growth in average incomes

One in 10 children are deprived of basic necessities as Ireland sees a sharp rise in child poverty despite a strong growth in average incomes, research suggests.

rte.ie

Great to see communities across Ireland organising to stop the wasteful, anti-developmental expansion of data centres. Places like Naas are where the AI arms race driven by US monopoly tech hits the ground, and where it can be resisted. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026...

‘We just don’t want them’: hundreds gather in a Kildare town over data centre plans

Noise issues in Clondalkin are a cautionary tale – but it’s not too late for Kildare, town meeting hears

irishtimes.com

At a public meeting about a planned data centre in Kildare, more than double the number of expected attendees turned up.

‘We just don’t want them’: hundreds gather in a Kildare town over data centre plans

Noise issues in Clondalkin are a cautionary tale – but it’s not too late for Kildare, town meeting hears

irishtimes.com

Tonight, we reveal how water use from data centres almost doubled during the summer, peaking in July when the hosepipe ban was introduced for households. The figures show data centres used over 514 million litres of water between May and July this year. Read on thejournal.ie just after midnight 🔜

Terror acts orchestrated and carried out by the proscribed UDA & UVF. No COBRA meeting and a whitewashing of terror involvement because the North of Ireland isn’t seen as somewhere deserving safety, never mind human & civil rights. Paramilitary groups are still celebrating their pogrom operation.

Erin Gallagher@3r1ng.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“What we saw was the forensic targeting of houses occupied by black and minority ethnic individuals and families by organised gangs, implying a level of co-ordination and organisation rather than an outpouring of uncontrolled rage." viewdigital.org/ppr-and-anak...

Reform have now lost six by-elections in a row in England, Scotland and Wales. Their national poll rating is 26% – below Labour in 1983 – and Farage’s approval rating is -37. They’re very far from the voice of the people and need to stop being treated as such.

To understand the Belfast pogroms, politicians need to understand the specifics of loyalist paramilitary organisation and organised criminal exploitation of children. Especially if tempted by the idea of "legitimate grievances". Stop right there and read!

End Deportations Belfast@enddbelfast.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In January End Deportations Belfast uncovered via FOI that 49 children involved in the August 2024 and Ballymena 2025 racist violence had been identified by PSNI as Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE). [1/n]

Causeway Pride said it before midnight: no dressing this up as legitimate protest. It was criminality. The frightened are being exploited. The organisers are fascists. The two are not the same. The left's job today is to stand with the families and refuse the laundering. (5/5) #Spéirghorm

On 19th and 20th June, the People's Forum on Peace and Neutrality will bring together advocates and specialists on international law, diplomacy, peace studies and the arms trade for an open and urgent examination of neutrality, EU rearmament, and the role of civil society. Register: bit.ly/3S5QYVT

Data centres have become a key *material* focal point in the struggle over AI, monopoly tech, economic justice, work and the environment. Describing this as a 'culture war' is lazy journalism.

Oh wow it's almost like politicians have been cynically using 'rural ireland' as cover for shitty politics and should never have been taken at their word about the death/nail in the coffin/last straw/end... Etc of rural Ireland. This will be of no surprise to anybody from a rural area

The Journal@thejournal.ie · 4mo ago

There is no evidence of an urban-rural divide when it comes to people's level of worry and willingness to take action in response to climate change, a new study from the Economic and Social Reseach Institute (ESRI) has found. jrnl.ie/7059388

The cost of data centres—New FoE Ireland report by CUSP fellow @seanfearon.bsky.social models how the growing data centre demand on the Irish electricity grid is pushing up electricity prices for households across the state. → cusp.ac.uk/themes/aetw/... cc #postgrowth #energy

The Cost of Data Centres | FoE Ireland report by Seán Fearon

Commissioned by Beyond Fossil Fuels and Friends of the Earth Ireland, a new report by CUSP research fellow Seán Fearon models how the constant, inflexible, ...

cusp.ac.uk

‘Hidden datacentre tax’ costing Irish households millions, report says

‘Hidden datacentre tax’ costing Irish households millions, report says

Datacentres used 22% of country’s electricity last year, pushing up household bills, study suggests Energy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a report. Ireland’s growing number of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban homes combined, according to the Central Statistics Office. The equivalent figure in the US and UK is 6%. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

"The cost of data centre growth in Ireland: Households paid an estimated €715 million more in electricity bills" Excellent, detailed new FOE Ireland modelling confirming with hard evidence that this industry is making power less accessible www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/the-cos...

New report commissioned with @foeireland.bsky.social written by @seanfearon.bsky.social reveals the real cost borne by ordinary people in 🇮🇪 Ireland due to data centres’ rapid expansion in the country! www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/the-cos...

The cost of data centre growth in Ireland: Households paid an estimated €715 million more in electricity bills

Ireland’s current approach to data centres is increasingly a cost-of-living issue

friendsoftheearth.ie

This information, uncovered by campaign group Save Leitrim, about the Sitka industry propaganda booklet sent to all primary schools in the state, is truly shocking. Why is the Dept of Agriculture colluding with a nature-killing industry to produce outright disinformation to force on our children???

Since 2019, Spain doubled solar + wind capacity. Now electricity prices are some of lowest in EU. Ireland has increased RE capacity but all of it has been absorbed by DC growth. You can't talk about energy transition (including nuclear) in Ireland without talking about DCs.

“Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation” @cornellupress.bsky.social featured in the Guardian! 🥹 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

‘Live and let live’: Northern Ireland historian uncovers surprising era of tolerance of gay men

Public records and private papers reveal compassion and tacit acceptance before ‘moral panic’ took hold in the 1950s and 1960s

theguardian.com

"Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" is published TODAY by @cornellupress.bsky.social! I tell the story of how queer men didn't just exist in Belfast but could be accepted by friends, family & colleagues... at least until a moral panic about homosexuality in the 1950s. 🧵

Thrilled that my paper (w/@sarahobolt.bsky.social,@catherinedevries.bsky.social,@simonecremaschi.bsky.social) was accepted at the American Political Science Review! We find that declining public services fuel support for the populist right — and show why the right benefits more than other parties 🧵