Ballymoneen Solar Development Awareness Group

29/05/2026

Data centres accounted for 22% of all Irish electricity use in 2024 and that figure could hit 30% by 2030, powered by growing demand for AI.

27/05/2026

13/05/2026

It has now been a few weeks since the last Ballymoneen Solar Farm Extension (Phase 2) update, with a decision due on 17 May.

Meanwhile, further large-scale solar developments continue to be approved across the county, including a third solar farm near Tuam reported today by the Tuam Herald.

For many rural communities, the conversation is increasingly about cumulative impact, land use, infrastructure, and the long-term effect of repeated industrial-scale developments on local areas.

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THE Tuam developments are earmarked for lands on the town’s outskirts. Third solar farm gets go ahead on outskirts of Tuam Over 360 acres earmarked for development Mark Walsh Published: Wed 13 May 2026, 8:38 AM A THIRD solar farm project on the outskirts of Tuam has been granted planning permissio...

05/05/2026

26/04/2026

💚 Thank You — From the Bottom of Our Hearts 💚
As the submission period now closes, we just want to say a huge and sincere thank you to everyone who took the time to submit an objection, share information, talk to neighbours, offer support, or simply check in over the past few weeks.
The response from our local community and from neighbours further afield has been fantastic. It has shown real care for our rural landscape, and for how planning decisions affect people’s homes and daily lives.
Every submission submitted represents a voice — and that matters.
The current decision due date is 17 May 2026, and while we now wait for the planning process to run its course, we do so knowing that our community engaged constructively, respectfully, and in good faith.
We all see in the media how renewable energy developments — wind and solar — are being proposed across many parts of the country. The impacts of such developments are increasingly understood, and in many cases felt most acutely by rural communities. Whatever the outcome here, this process has shown the importance of community involvement and thoughtful, plan‑led decision‑making.
For now, thank you again for the generosity of time, the support, the encouragement, and the solidarity shown over the past weeks. 💚
We’ll share updates when there is news to share.

26/04/2026

📅Today is the final day for objections to be submitted in relation to the Ballymoneen Solar Farm Extension (Phase 2)📅

Click here to make your submission today:
https://planning.localgov.ie/user/login?destination=/dashboard/submission/create/2660431/GC

Over the past two years, those living beside and around the existing Ballymoneen development — and many within the wider community — have experienced sustained construction noise, heavy and prolonged traffic on minor rural roads, and the permanent loss of what was once a quiet rural landscape. These impacts were presented at application stage as temporary and minor, but in reality they have proven continuous and intrusive.
Because Phase 1 is now an everyday lived reality for many families, there is a clear understanding of what a further phase would involve. The impacts being proposed are not hypothetical — they are foreseeable, repeatable and cumulative. That lived experience allows the community to assess whether the mitigation and assurances now being put forward reflect what actually happens on the ground. For many, they do not.
Submissions made raise serious concerns, including — but not limited to — public safety (particularly in relation to battery storage), emergency access, enforcement and compliance, wildlife protection, archaeology, and the adequacy of the environmental assessment. There are also concerns about the potential risk posed to the wider Corrib water catchment should contamination occur, given the sensitivity of local groundwater and its importance as part of a regional drinking water supply. These are not abstract issues. They are real, unresolved matters that go to whether permission can lawfully be granted.

💚I want to thank everyone who has spoken up, shared information, and supported one another throughout this process. Whatever the outcome, it matters that community voices — and lived experience — are properly heard.💚

25/04/2026

💚 Update from the County Council yesterday we have until 11:59pm Sunday night to Have Your Say — Thank You 💚

If you are affected, or simply feel strongly about how development decisions shape our rural communities, this is your last chance to make a formal submission.

The response over the past two weeks has shown what can happen when a community comes together — every objection submitted represents a voice that deserves to be heard.
Planning Reference: 2660431
Submit online before the deadline:
👉 https://www.eplanning.ie/Galway/AppFileRefDetails/2660431/0
If you need help this morning — even for a short submission — please reach out:
[email protected]
🙏 Please share one last time, or check in with a neighbour or family member who may not realise today is the deadline.
Thank you for standing up for your community 💚

25/04/2026

Spain’s solar boom is often sold as a green success story—but the fallout tells a harsher reality. After 2007, vast areas were rapidly covered with solar farms under generous subsidies, only for the government to slash support retroactively a few years later. The result wasn’t just financial collapse for investors—it left behind aging, inefficient installations locked into land that could have been used more productively. Some sites fell into neglect or were only partially maintained, with limited obligation to fully restore the land. Instead of a clean transition, parts of the landscape were effectively industrialised with long-term consequences....