Turbines in Mayo windfarm will be 'taller than Dublin Spire’

Members of the community in Lacken and Ballycastle have said the ‘proliferation of windfarms’ and ‘turbines taller than the Spire’ in their area flies in the face of a recently launched plan to shape north Mayo as a leading tourism destination.

The five-year Wild Mayo Destination and Experience Plan, which includes the development of the Céide Coastal Path, a 15km trail linking the Céide Fields to Downpatrick Head, was launched in May.

However, the Lacken/Ballycastle Community Landscape Protection Group said it was ‘coincidental and ironic’ that in the same month the plan was announced, proposals for three windfarms in the area were advanced. The windfarms in question are a 22-turbine project at Glenora, 16-turbines at Tirawley Wind Farm near Lacken and a new application by Greensource Energy for 22 wind turbines at Clydagh.

The Glenora project, which received planning permission from An Coimisiún Pleanála last week, is located seven miles southwest of Ballycastle and Downpatrick Head.

“These are very large turbines with a tip head of 180 metres, taller than Dublin’s Spire, which will completely dominate the landscape for miles around and will seriously injure the visual amenity of this unique and cherished landscape,” the group said. “The Clydagh site is located adjacent to the Glenora site. It is an area of extensive blanket bog, a highly valuable carbon sink which slows climate change by absorbing large amounts of CO2.

“Archaeological evidence suggests the Céide Fields system of stone walls, neolithic dwellings and burial chambers potentially exists underneath the Glenora site.” 

A fresh application for the controversial Tirawley Windfarm project was recently submitted to An Coimisiún Pleanála after a previous application was deemed incomplete by the planning authority last November and subsequently withdrawn by the applicant Constant Energy.

A number of issues were raised by An Coimisiún Pleanála, including the submission of documents referencing an additional two wind turbines not included in public notices attached to the application. Furthermore, local councillors had welcomed a report by Mayo County Council planners recommending that planning be refused for the proposal prior to its withdrawal.

Council planners had said while the local authority is generally supportive of renewable energy projects within the county, the location is not considered appropriate for the proposed development, as it is located in a landscape that does not adequately provide for it.

Tirawley Windfarm has been contacted for comment regarding its latest proposal, but none was forthcoming. 

The Lacken/Ballycastle Community Landscape Protection Group said it is “interesting” that Tirawley Windfarm is proposed to sit on hills overlooking Lacken Strand while that same imagery is used to promote tourism in North Mayo in promotional material used as far away as New York.

The group said with a number of other windfarms planned in the area, the entire Killala/Lacken/Ballycastle is facing the prospect of an excess of 100 large wind turbines in their reasonably confined local area, which they believe will be “detrimental”. 

“Given the proposed high density and proliferation of turbines in the scenic coastal areas of Lacken and Ballycastle, we fail to see how any meaningful tourism can grow and thrive in the environs of such an industrial scale infrastructure development in an area that until recently had a tentative UNESCO designation.

"We are potentially witnessing the withering on the vine of the fabric of rural communities and the despoliation of all we hold dear in terms of heritage, history and venerable landscape in the area unless the unabated, headlong rush for windfarms is stopped,” they said.

Further windfarm project proposals continue to be made for North Mayo, with a 13-turbine wind farm recently proposed by RWE Renewables with a 110kV substation in a number of townlands close to Bangor Erris.

* A public meeting about Tirawley Windfarm will be held in Lacken Community Centre on Thursday next, May 28, at 8.30pm.