\u201cI think they should never have been brought here,\u201d Brennan says of the plans. \u201cThis is agricultural land and they\u2019re claiming that it\u2019s suitable for development [as] industrial land \u2026 For the last 50 years that I\u2019ve lived here, this has been cows on it most of the time, the dairy cattle, for milk for the cheese factory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know anybody that really wants it, maybe one or two people might have said that it\u2019ll give a lot of employment,\u201d Brennan says. \u201cBut it\u2019s not going to give employment, because [as with] other places where they have installed them \u2013 it\u2019s kind of self-maintained.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is hard to miss Brennan\u2019s house on the drive through Kilmeaden, where he has lived with his wife Eithne since 1960. Pinned to the gates outside its pink walls is a large placard that reads \u201cStop industrial Kilmeaden\u201d. The sign refers to \u201cthree data centres, 16 gas-powered turbines, 43,056 PV solar panels\u201d alongside the message \u201cSay NO!\u201d.<\/p>\n
These are part of the infrastructure laid out in a planning proposal submitted to Waterford City and County Council<\/a> in September of last year. Also mentioned is a \u201cvillage centre\u201d with a gym, cafe, health centre, pharmacy and office space. The application was submitted by a subsidiary of Irish company Echelon Data Centres, and a local property developer, Kent Homes.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Echelon Data Centres said, in a statement, that the company was \u201ccommitted to delivering digital infrastructure responsibly and sustainably\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAll our facilities are designed and developed in line with regulatory guidelines and in consultation with community representatives,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cThey create jobs, support the national grid, help bring large-scale renewables on stream, and drive economic activity in communities throughout Ireland.<\/p>\n \u201cA planning submission for a technology park on a brownfield site in Kilmeaden, alongside new residential housing and community amenities in the village, is still under consideration by Waterford City and County Council. It would not be appropriate for us to discuss the application further at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n Data centres have been in Ireland since the 1990s, growing in significance since the advent of smartphone technology over the past two decades. As of June of this year, Dublin-based data consultancy Bitpower estimates, there are 109 operational data centres in the country<\/a>, with eight more facilities under construction and a further 51 having received planning approval. <\/p>\n Data centres are synonymous with \u201cthe cloud\u201d, a global network of remote servers that store, manage and process data on the internet so that personal devices do not have to. They are large, physical facilities housing racks of servers, networked computers and other data storage infrastructure.<\/p>\n Essentially, everything done online involves an interaction with a data centre, from streaming music and TV to reading this article. The servers themselves require a vast amount of electricity to run, as do cooling systems required to keep them operational. Ireland\u2019s temperate climate is one of the factors that make it an attractive location.<\/p>\n Kilmeaden is a small, rural village with a population of 334 according to the last census, though a couple of housing developments in recent years, built by Kent Homes, have added to that total. Several thousand people reside in the surrounding area.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could look at it as a satellite village for Waterford,\u201d says Mary Sue Connolly, who grew up on a family farm in Kilmeaden, \u201cbut it\u2019s far enough away that\u2019s it\u2019s still rural. People have moved out of Waterford, people who don\u2019t want to live in an urban environment, to Kilmeaden to get away from the city life.\u201d<\/p>\n Connolly spent 20 years living in New York before returning to the village. She is a central figure in the Kilmeaden Against Industrialisation campaign, which is driven by a core group of seven or eight people. She cites the new houses as evidence that \u201cthis is not Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) territory\u201d, and insists locals have no problem with new infrastructure in general. Connolly says no one objected to the new housing developments.<\/p>\n On a local level, noise, emissions, light pollution, strain on water services and depreciation of house value are among the concerns voiced by opponents to the data centre campus.<\/p>\n [\u00a0How Ireland feels about data-centre construction revealed in new Irish Times pollOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Another member of the campaign group, Jane O\u2019Brien, was raised by her grandparents, who live on a road that bisects the land proposed for development. A dozen or so houses are dotted along the road, and a number of its residents are in their 80s.<\/p>\n \u201cI get emotional [because] it means a huge amount to me,\u201d O\u2019Brien says. \u201cI would love to say I would be in a position to buy that house [in the future] and raise my kids there, where I\u2019ve had such amazing memories. But who wants to live beside that? I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Both she and Connolly are concerned about national implications too. According to the Central Statistics Office, data centres accounted for 23 per cent of total metered electricity consumption in Ireland in 2025, up from just 5 per cent in 2015. Projections for 2035 suggest data centres \u201cand other new technical loads\u201d will account for a median level of about 35 per cent of all the electricity demand in the State, the Oireachtas was told last month<\/a> by Jim Gannon, the commissioner for the regulation of utilities.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody is struggling right now across the country to pay their electricity bill, to live, to survive,\u201d O\u2019Brien says. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at data centres that are paying half the rate that we are for electricity as a population, which is a farce when all they\u2019re doing is making big profits.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking in Washington last year, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said what he described as the \u201cdemonisation of data centres\u201d needed to end if Ireland was to be able to keep up in the tech and artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI) sector. \u201cWe do need to step up. We can\u2019t just postpone AI … We can\u2019t declare a moratorium on AI. We\u2019d be left well behind if we do that.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Garry Connolly, the man lobbying for data centres in Ireland: \u2018Disparaging them means you\u2019re effectively demonising the big tax takes\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n The United States has seen a continuing wave of protests against data centres, with what broadcaster-turned-entrepreneur Mark Little described as \u201cthe biggest wave of civic activism I\u2019ve seen possibly since the 1960s\u201d in a recent interview with The Irish Times<\/a>. <\/p>\n On a Saturday in mid-July, opponents to the facilities held 142 protests across 42 US states. There, about 6 per cent of the national electricity supply is devoted to data centres, according to the 2026 Global Data Center Report<\/a>, compared with Ireland\u2019s 23 per cent.<\/p>\n Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke<\/a>, following the publication in June of a Government-commissioned KPMG report called The Value of Data Centres to Ireland, said it provided \u201cclear evidence of the critical contribution that data centres make to the Irish economy\u201d. <\/p>\n A recent study carried out by academics in Maynooth University (MU), University College Dublin (UCD), and Universitat Aut\u00f2noma de Barcelona (UAB) suggested the economic benefits of Ireland\u2019s data centre sector had been exaggerated.<\/p>\n Researchers said the KPMG report\u2019s claim that data centres underpinned more than 876,000 jobs in Ireland was \u201cbased on spurious methodology\u201d. As the original report itself noted, only 3,300 people were directly employed by data centres in Ireland in 2024.<\/p>\n The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment this week defended the report, saying it was independently prepared by KPMG and that its methodology, assumptions and findings were published in full and available for scrutiny and debate. \u201cLike any piece of research, its conclusions may be challenged and discussed, and the Department welcomes academic engagement on these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department said the academics\u2019 report \u201cfocuses primarily on the direct economic activity associated with the operation of data centres and takes a more limited view of the wider economic activity that can be attributed to data centres.<\/p>\n \u201cThe KPMG report, by contrast, considered both the direct economic contribution of data centres and their role as critical digital infrastructure supporting wider economic activity and Ireland\u2019s attractiveness as a location for investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) connection policy, new data centres in Ireland must meet at least 80 per cent of their annual electricity demand with renewable energy within six years.<\/p>\n A technical response to the planning application for the Kilmeadan data centre campus was carried out by engineering consultant Homan O\u2019Brien. It found that the anticipated annual electricity demand associated with the development was approximately 1,781GWh. A proposed solar farm on the site, it added, would generate approximately 35.7GWh.<\/p>\n Essentially, although more than 43,000 solar panels are planned for the Kilmeaden site, their output would constitute just 2 per cent of its annual electricity demand. The expectation is that Tonn Nua, a large, offshore wind farm set to be developed 12km off the Waterford coast, will prop up the data centre\u2019s energy requirements down the line.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018No stopping it\u2019: Noise from Dublin data centre causing \u2018a lot of annoyance\u2019 for residentsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n When he defended data centres in Washington last year, the Taoiseach also acknowledged the facilities could contribute to climate<\/a> problems because they consumed a large amount of energy. But he added that Ireland would be able to produce more climate-friendly energy, through offshore wind, in the coming years. <\/p>\n Back in Kilmeaden, Connolly describes the proposed solar farm as \u201ctokenism\u201d. <\/p>\n An environmental group, Friends of the Irish Environment, has said \u201cfundamental questions\u201d around the development of the data centre were yet to be answered. In particular, they pointed to a lack of clarity about how the remaining 98 per cent of the development\u2019s electricity demands would be met. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is an enormous new electricity demand,\u201d said the group\u2019s director, Tony Lowes. \u201cThe applicant\u2019s own figures show that 98 per cent of its power would have to come from elsewhere. Yet the response still relies on future grid connections, future renewable contracts and future electricity-system decarbonisation rather than secured and assessable measures.\u201d<\/p>\n Signs such as the one outside Danny Brennan\u2019s house are commonplace throughout Kilmeaden. More than 500 submissions have been made in relation to the planning application in the village over the past year and Waterford City and County Council is due to make a decision on the development by Monday, October 19th.<\/p>\n![\"Eithne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/5SGEXCKQLVHRVLJRMSZDDM7QRM.jpg\")
Eithne and Danny Brennan, with their dog Jen. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill \/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n![\"Local](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/R7YJAEDKE5FFZNX5BX2WW6NY64.jpg\")
Local resident Mary Sue Connolly at the proposed site of data centre in Kilmeaden, Co Waterford. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3EJFOQSTMZFSROGUV7MWHQWSII.jpg\")
Mary Sue Connolly and Jane O’Brien, Kilmeaden residents opposed to a proposed building of data centre\u2019s in Kilmeaden village, Co. Waterford. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill \/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n![\"Danny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/XH7NGKCCPFF4NFIR5PC5MZPVC4.jpg\")
Danny Brennan in his back garden, which meets the perimeter of the proposed site of a data centre in Kilmeaden, Co Meath. Photograph: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n
![\"Meta's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Y5F226OO72G4OZBPWUCRA7SM4Q.jpg\")
Meta’s data centre in Clonee, Co Meath. Photograph: Niall Carson\/PA Wire <\/p>\n