Eileen and Alan Mullarkey would never have considered extending their remote home in Erris, Co Mayo, if they had known it would be surrounded by turbines from Ireland’s largest wind farm a decade later.
Oweninny Wind Farm is being built in three phases as a joint venture between the ESB and Bord na Móna at a cost to date of €320 million.
The second phase of the farm entered commercial operation in the spring of 2024, with an installed capacity now of 192mw which meets the power needs of some 140,000 homes a year.
With the third phase having received planning permission earlier this year, the Mullarkeys say an estate agent has told them their eight-bedroom house, which they extended in 2016 and once considered opening as a B&B, is now effectively worthless.
READ MORE
The couple saved hard in order to build their dream home, with Alan working in the UK before they were married. It is on a narrow road in the townland of Shanakilla, beside the once booming village of Bellacorick, on a plot of land next to the remote farmhouse where Eileen was reared and where her brother still lives.
The couple, in their early 50s, have five children, aged from 13 to 25, who are still living at home.
“We never had a problem with the original wind farm which has ‘toy turbines’, as we call them, and are further from the house,” Eileen says.
Built in 1992, this was Ireland’s first commercial wind farm and it adjoins the new development. Due to be decommissioned in the coming months, 18 new turbines are scheduled to replace the original 21, completing the three phases of the Oweninny project and its 78 turbines.
Speaking last year after the opening of phase two, then minister for energy and Green Party TD Eamon Ryan called it “a significant day for Ireland and for Mayo” in terms of delivering clean energy.
For decades anyone who travelled from Ballina to Belmullet would recall how this vast, bare and boggy landscape was once dominated by the 300ft high (88.82m) Bellacorick Generating Station’s cooling tower.
Today, this landscape is dominated by wind turbines double the tower’s size, standing 176m (577ft) high.
When the cooling tower was demolished by a controlled explosion in 2007, thousands watched from afar, comparing it to “a wake” for the community.
It serviced Bord na Móna and the ESB’s last old-style peat-fired electricity generating plant. Situated north of the N59 between Crossmolina and Bangor Erris, the station burned milled peat from 2,400 hectares (24sq km) of developed bogland which helped to power the national grid from 1962 until 2003.
For an area blighted by emigration driven by economics, the industry, when at peak production, provided employment for up to 500 locals.
“Back then I worked down in the pub,” Eileen says. “It was full of life and there was loads of money around the area. Then, bang – it was gone. We lost the pub. We lost the post office. We lost the petrol pumps. We lost everything once the power station shut down.
“There is almost no direct employment from this project,” Alan says of the wind farm. “Its contractors come in, do their maintenance work and disappear again.”
The lack of local employment is one of many criticisms the Mullarkeys have about living beside the project.
“When the turbines are running at a high speed, the swishing noise is going to be louder but then during the winter gales and storms you’ve got the clash of the wind with the blades,” says Alan.
The couple claim the project was rushed through the planning process before they realised what was happening.
“When the rumours became a reality, we did object on the grounds that the project was too close to our house, that there would be noise intrusion and our view would be blocked,” says Alan.
“At the time we didn’t know about shadow flicker,” Eileen adds. “That’s when the blades are going around and they cast a moving shadow through the house that every now and then obstructs the sunlight ... darkening the rooms.
Eileen said theirs is the only house that has shadow flicker and it occurs in the mornings and the evenings.
“Even the first time we reported shadow flicker, they told us this wouldn’t happen, saying there was a sensor on the turbine that shuts it down but I can assure you that is not the case.”
It is important to note, says Eileen, that none of their objections and queries were ever about money.
“We feel we have been branded as troublemakers just because we didn’t agree with everything. We just want people to understand the realities of wind farms,” she says.
“After all, the only compensation households within the 1,000-metre zone get is €1,000 a year, for phase two only, and for 15 years. Ironically, it doesn’t even pay our electricity bill for the year. Wouldn’t it have been a positive community gesture to allow one of the turbines to generate local electricity?”
Accountant Tommy McHugh’s home, in Ballymunnelly, is another of the 22 houses deemed “near neighbours” of the project.
“There were a lot of promises made before the wind turbines were installed and we thought we would be able to negotiate for better compensation but the developer has hidden behind the legislation and has only been open to giving us the minimum amount,” says McHugh.
“Our properties have been devalued by at least 50 per cent while the developer has amassed multimillion euro profits.”
His neighbour, Madeleine Gallagher, who works as a nurse in Castlebar, has the same criticisms.
“I also understand we need green power and as I drive home from Castlebar at night I find all the lights in the sky from the turbines comforting, even if they look like great grey statues during the day,” she says. “But the reality is that we have a very elderly population, no employment in the area and the company could have treated us better.”
Locals agree that a €600,000 community benefit fund and educational scholarship scheme have been welcome.
“In 2024 four scholarships were awarded to applicants who live within 5km of Oweninny Wind Farm Phase 2. The scheme may be used towards course fees, accommodation, tools and transport costs,” an ESB spokeswoman said.
Some 1,462 pupils from 34 schools have attended the educational programme at the visitor centre, which covers “the history of power generation, peat production, wind energy development, the bog rehabilitation programme, ecological interests and the social history of the area”.
Addressing some of the criticisms made by locals, the spokeswoman stated that the developer was “committed to and rigorously adhering to” all the planning conditions.
She said the wind farm supports 14 direct jobs, employed more than 100 people during construction and that local contractors and service providers “continue to support the operation of the visitor centre on a weekly basis”.
For local Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Loftus, the bottom line is that the project has gone through the full planning process and been granted permission.
“The community made their feelings known at the time and some are for it and some are against it but the big win is the community gain fund,” he said. “There will be more employment when phase three starts and there is huge potential for employment through the visitor centre.”
However, he agrees there should be free electricity for the project’s “near neighbours” under that scheme and their annual compensation should be greater than €1,000 per year.
Meanwhile, the Mullarkeys are concerned about practicalities such as their narrow roadway up to the N59 becoming flooded as a result of the huge construction project having involved deep excavation of the bog.
“A bog is like a sponge: they took the bog away to put stone and steel into it to build these monstrosities,” says Eileen.
“During the building of the turbines, the big machinery did so much damage to the bog and now they are telling us that people cutting a few yards of turf are damaging the environment,” Alan says.
With the construction of phase three of the wind farm in the offing, the Mullarkeys say they are too tired to continue asking questions and putting in queries about the project.
“Last year there was a major cable fault in the system and the turbines were shut down for 12 weeks,” says Eileen.
“It was like winning the lotto for us. The silence was just like heaven and most importantly, as we worked in our garden, we could hear the birds singing again.”
