Ireland’s data centre boom sparks land and power fears as residents brace for more
Near Naas in County Kildare, Sorcha O’Neill and Dolores Moore are watching farmland they say may soon be flattened for a row of data centres.
Near Naas in County Kildare, Sorcha O’Neill and Dolores Moore are watching farmland they say may soon be flattened for a row of data centres. The two neighbours stand by an old fence thick with blackberry bushes, as local authorities prepare to take the next step in a plan that has rattled this centuries-old Irish town.
O’Neill, a former local councillor who knows the planning system, says she only spotted the paperwork for the Jigginstown site four weeks ago while checking another application. “That’s right next door,” she says. Moore and O’Neill now find themselves in the middle of a growing fight over how far Ireland should let the server-farm boom spread.
A country that has become a magnet
Ireland already has about 72 data centres and is expected to add dozens more in just a few years. Developers are drawn by a familiar mix: skilled workers, low costs and an established tech ecosystem that has made the country a favourite European base for digital infrastructure.
But the pace is testing nerves. Data centres need land, power and permits, and every new project raises questions about who benefits and who pays the price. For people living beside planned sites, the concern is not abstract. It is the field at the end of the road, the bulldozers, the noise, the pressure on local services.
Local consent, national stakes
In Naas, the argument has sharpened around notice and transparency. O’Neill says residents were not properly informed before the latest plan surfaced. That complaint echoes across communities in countries from the United States to Singapore, where residents and officials alike are wrestling with the speed of data centre expansion.
The projects sit at the heart of the modern internet. Yet they also demand a physical footprint that is hard to ignore. Long rows of buildings. Heavy equipment. Large plots of land. Once a quiet edge of town can turn into a construction corridor almost overnight.
For O’Neill and Moore, the issue is immediate and personal. What was open farmland last week could become part of the next wave of Europe’s digital backbone. And in Kildare, the next council decision may decide how close that future comes to their back fence.
