Save the Moat - Save the Sperrins

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Save the Moat - Save the Sperrins We are a local group within the Sperrins formed to oppose developments of an industrial nature, which would be detrimental to our AONBs

⛰️ Community isn’t just about coming together when things are easy. Sometimes, it’s about standing together when things ...
18/10/2026

⛰️ Community isn’t just about coming together when things are easy. Sometimes, it’s about standing together when things are difficult. It is also about having the courage to do what you believe is right, even when it’s unpopular, uncomfortable or controversial.

It’s about speaking up, asking difficult questions and standing up for the places that are sacred and precious. Because once they are destroyed, they are gone forever.

Protecting these mountains isn’t always the easy thing to do, but we believe it is, and always will be, the right thing to do.

Thank you to each and every person who helps to protect this area.

🙌🏻📷 Alan Rodgers & Michael Cullen - for We are Tyrone

Oh dear, pulling out the Tyrone women when the 💩starts hitting the fan👀Interesting interview in the Belfast Telegraph wi...
16/10/2026

Oh dear, pulling out the Tyrone women when the 💩starts hitting the fan👀

Interesting interview in the Belfast Telegraph with Sarah Friar, originally from Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, and now Chief Financial Officer of OpenAI. She’s talking about the usual jobs, investment and bringing opportunities back home 😬

Aw sounds very lovely, but a few things caught our attention. First up, why is Ireland so attractive to OpenAI? In her own words:

“What do we like about Ireland? Number one, it’s a place that has a lot of renewable energy.”

Well, well, well… here we go again. So while we are being told that covering our precious mountains and AONB with industrial wind turbines is all about saving the planet, that same renewable energy is now being used as a selling point for attracting massive, electricity hungry AI data centres.

And who do you think is expected to provide the land, the landscapes and the noisy and toxic infrastructure? Yip, rural communities and the sacrifices of nature.

Sarah tells the Belfast Telegraph about OpenAI’s proposed data centre in Savannah, Georgia:

“We asked locals and were putting $80m into the community.” She goes on to describe free school lunches and tax benefits. All sounds lovely but here is what she doesn’t mention. In Georgia, residents have been protesting the development, questioning how decisions were made and taking legal action. So it’s not quite the happy community partnership being presented.

And over in Ohio, communities are organising against the spread of data centres, raising concerns about water, electricity, pollution and the loss of their countryside. It’s funny how a the glossy PR announcements never tell you much about the people fighting these developments and why.

Sarah also says: “Frankly, it’s home. And I kind of like being able to invest in home.” Well Sarah this is our home to and we would quite like to see it protected. In fact why don’t you invest in cleaning up toxic Lough Neagh or restoring our damaged peatlands and habitats. Instead of boasting about the prospect of bringing more water/energy hungry AI data centres to Ireland, powered by renewable energy that many rural communities have made serious sacrifices for, and in some cases have had forced upon them.

Nothing says "green" quite like ripping up peatland and filling the hole with steel and concrete.These photos show a sin...
13/10/2026

Nothing says "green" quite like ripping up peatland and filling the hole with steel and concrete.

These photos show a single wind turbine base under construction near Wick in Caithness, home of the Flow Country, which is one of the largest and most intact blanket bogs in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can see the depth of peat in those cut faces. Why on earth are they building on it???

That is just one turbine, and you have to multiply it by every turbine on the site before adding the access roads, crane pads and cable trenches that cut through the bog to connect them all.

Peat is our biggest land carbon store, and once it has been dug out and drained it keeps releasing that carbon for many years after the diggers have gone. It just makes no sense.

This is the same madness being proposed for the Moat in heart of the Sperrins AONB.
We will not let these sacred mountains go the same way.

☢️ Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with no public register of contaminated land.The law to create one has ex...
13/10/2026

☢️ Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with no public register of contaminated land.

The law to create one has existed since 1997. It has never been switched on, and it needs nothing more than Environment Minister Andrew Muir's signature. He has agreed it should happen, yet there has been absolutely no commitment.

🧪Arsenic, lead, asbestos and more, could be in the soil where children play, food is grown and homes are built, and nobody in Northern Ireland has the right to know where.

The excuse is cost. If government records where the contamination is, it may have to deal with it and so it chooses not to know.

We recognise this pattern, because for many months we have pressed DAERA through information requests about the radiological risk of disturbing caesium-137 held in Sperrins peat by large wind factory construction. Getting straight answers has been a battle. Not knowing is not the same as being safe.

Mr Muir, you have six months left in this mandate. Sign the commencement order and give the public the right to know what's in the ground beneath our homes, farms and schools.
And while you are at it, make site specific testing for contaminants, including CS-137, mandatory.

⚠️ How many warnings do they need, and how quickly they forget….TWO INCIDENTS at Drumnahough wind factory construction s...
10/10/2026

⚠️ How many warnings do they need, and how quickly they forget….

TWO INCIDENTS at Drumnahough wind factory construction site in Donegal. What happened at Meenbog has clearly been forgotten.

According to reports in Donegal Daily, on 17th September a rock berm designed to contain excavated material, including stripped peat, was breached, allowing material to move beyond it.

A SECOND incident involved a separate discharge of dirty water into a watercourse leading to the Elatagh River… no surprises there.

The Loughs Agency investigated both incidents, collected water samples and confirmed it is monitoring downstream water quality. The cause of the first incident is still being assessed.

👁️ It took a while for the public to hear about these incidents. The first incident happened on 17th September, but the report only appeared on 25th September.

In November 2020, a devastating peat slide at a wind factory under construction near Ballybofey sent thousands of tonnes of peat, trees and vegetation into the Mourne Beg and Derg rivers. The damage crossed the border into Tyrone, affecting an important salmon river system within the Foyle catchment. The Loughs Agency described the incident as catastrophic.

The Meenbog wind factory was linked to contracts with Amazon. Shhhh, don't mention the data centres and the greenwashing. Six years on, so many people are still asking questions about why these wind factories are allowed to be built on vulnerable carbon filled peatlands. There are serious risks posed to our rivers, wildlife and communities.

We know developers are sniffing around Meenbog again to try and get permission to finish the job. In July, the developer lodged a fresh application with An Coimisiún Pleanála to retain the partially built 19 turbine wind factory and complete it 🤯

This is all despite the High Court ruling in 2024 that the ENTIRE development was unauthorised and ordering works to stop, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal.

⛰️ And let’s also not forget about the extremely destructive proposal for the Moat, across the Mullaghs in the central AONB in the Sperrins, on peat and blanket bog. What a colossal disaster that will be if DfI decide to let greedy developers get their way. We will of course be fighting it all the way. There seems to be a lot of people with selective amnesia.

Wow, what can we say? What an amazing turnout. This was the first AI and Data Centre public meeting in the North, and we...
08/10/2026

Wow, what can we say? What an amazing turnout. This was the first AI and Data Centre public meeting in the North, and we just want to thank our amazing speakers: Mary McGuiggan, Dean Blackwood, Méabh O'Neill , , Pádraig Mac Niocaill Save Lough Neagh Narayan Toolan and

Thank you to Young Friends of the Earth Derry Young Friends of the Earth Derry for setting up their inspiring exhibition, and a special thanks to Conor from Cultúrlann, what an amazing venue. Thank you to each and every person who made the trip tonight in such bad weather to come, listen, and speak. Also, it is always important to bring nature into the room and give a voice to it and the animals.

Thank you to Leo Boyd for your amazing flyer, and to UTV for making the trip too. We hope this helps spark many more waves of resistance to what is now planned for the North West: Derry, the Sperrins, Coleraine, Kilroot, Letterkenny and far beyond.

Tomorrow night | Thursday 8th October | 7pm | An Cultúrlann, Derry. We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our public...
07/10/2026

Tomorrow night | Thursday 8th October | 7pm | An Cultúrlann, Derry. We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our public meeting on Data Centres & AI tomorrow evening at An Cultúrlann.

As part of the evening, YFoE Derry will have their Human Voices exhibition on display.

The exhibition brings together creative work by young people from Derry, exploring human experiences and perspectives through art. YFoE Derry previously showcased the work at their Human Voices event in the Playhouse, and we’re delighted that the exhibition will be on display again tomorrow night.

As AI and data centres become an increasingly important part of the conversation about the future of our communities, it’s important that we also make space for human voices and also those of young people and artists.

Come along, Thursday 8th October 7pm
An Cultúrlann

The NI Executive's draft AI Strategy wants to make Northern Ireland a hub for "green data centres", but there's been no ...
07/10/2026

The NI Executive's draft AI Strategy wants to make Northern Ireland a hub for "green data centres", but there's been no assessment of what that means for our electricity, water, land, nature, communities or climate. 💡💧

But if there is no assessment, there should be no strategy….

The consultation closes TODAY at 5pm. It only takes a few minutes to have your say and ask The Executive to withdraw the draft and do it properly.

👉 Link in bio and comments to respond oh and spread the word today…

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