The community ­battling to stop wind turbines 60m taller than the Dublin Spire 

Rath Beg is a townland close to Birr, accessible along a winding road off the N62 to Roscrea. It has long been a farming community, although, now, many of its residents no longer work on the land.

It is a scenic place with the Sharavogue bog stretched below, small green fields surrounding it, some of which are waterlogged after incessant rainfall since the start of the year. In the distance, the Slieve Bloom and Silvermines mountains can be discerned. The view stretches to north Tipperary and east Galway.

There’s a faint hum of distant traffic, but it’s the birdsong that dominates on this sunny February day. Pockets of wild flowers are in bloom. Spring is on its way.

But many locals in this peaceful Offaly locale are fearful that their way of life will be forever altered. They worry about plans by the German energy giant, RWE, to construct 11 wind turbines – with blades reaching 180 metres into the sky – on land at the Ballincor townland, which borders the bog. For several people, the nearest turbine will be less than one kilometre away.

“We haven’t been able to think about anything else,” says Laura Dargan, who has lived in Rath Beg for the past 20 years. “It was first suggested a few years ago, but nobody really thought it was serious, and then in September, RWE told us they were going to build 11 turbines here.”

If the Ballincor Wind Farm – as RWE call it – is built, the turbines would dominate the view from Dargan’s kitchen table – one turbine after another and far higher than the Spire in Dublin. On the crest of a distant hill stands a row of turbines that were constructed by a Danish firm two decades ago. “They’re about 50m tall,” she says. “What RWE are proposing are more than three times taller than those – and right here.” She points out the window. It is easy to imagine how imposing the sight would be.

Anyone who has driven through the county, especially in its northern and eastern regions, will know there are several windfarms already built in the area. Indeed, it is estimated that there are more than 70 turbines within a 5km radius of Birr alone. Ireland’s first commercial windfarm was opened in Co Mayo in 1992, but there’s been a veritable deluge since then with ambitious climate targets driving development.

Large swathes of the country have had windfarms built, but concentration is especially heavy in the midlands. A slew of multinational energy companies, as well as Bórd na Móna, have set their sights on Offaly, especially on the former commercial bog land that for years was the engine that fuelled the county’s economy.

Many of those are seen as suitable locations as the turbines can be built several kilometres away from residents. But in the hunt to build yet more, other parts of the county are being considered.

Right now, there are proposals to build a windfarm close to Clonmacnoise, a place of huge historic importance. Drumlosh Wind Farm on Cornafulla Bog – a joint venture between Bord na Móna and SSE Renewables – would be just a kilometre from the monastic site. There has been significant opposition from some locals, with independent TD Carol Nolan calling for the plans to be scrapped.

RWE – which has a market capitalisation of almost €39bn – thought it would meet little resistance for its Ballincor project, but the opposition has been intense. Dargan says 220 families would be affected and points out that there has been a big turnout at meetings held on the issue, including one last week.

“This is a site with high scenic sensitivity,” she says. “It’s a flood plain. It is a part of the county that has not been designated as suitable for windfarms – other parts of Offaly have been deemed suitable. And Sharavogue Bog is a special area of conservation.”

Liam Egan and Patrick Headon are the owners of the bog and are vehemently opposed to the windfarm. Both men put in considerable work in the 1990s to safeguard this raised bog – winning an environmental award for their trouble – and believe the Ballincor Wind Farm would be nothing less than environmental vandalism.

“I’ve lived and farmed in this area all my life,” Egan says. “I’ve never seen an issue to bring people together, young and old, like this one.

“They’re totally flummoxed that you could plant a windfarm beside a special area of conservation, where there’s one of the most important raised bogs in the country. An issue that really bothers farmers who own land along by the Little Brosna river is the proposal to build a raised roadway of 5km in length, which could cause havoc in a place that’s already a floodplain. It could throw more water back on to our side.”

“If it got the go-ahead, this windfarm would be right up against my establishment. In the past 30-plus years, I have bred over 300 individual winners. I have overseas clients connected with the horse business, which is one of these major Irish success stories. Wind turbines would affect [the] rearing of my thoroughbreds. They need peace and quiet. They don’t want flicker.”

Shadow flicker occurs when the sun is low in the sky during sunrise or sunset and the rotating blades of a turbine cast a moving shadow, alternating between light and shadow.

“You don’t,” he adds, “see windfarms in Kildare where most of the main stud farms are.”

Dairy farmer Adrian Hoctor also lives right beside the proposed windfarm. “I’m concerned about noise, flicker – especially when the sun is going down – and health. We don’t know enough [about] what impact they have on our health.

“I don’t think the developer has engaged enough with the local community. There hasn’t been enough engagement. They’re just bullying their way into the area.”

He adds that it can be difficult for local people to be granted planning permission if they want to make changes to their home or farming properties, but when a multinational comes along, it can get the go-ahead to build enormous structures – all because of successive governments’ determination to increase our reliance on wind energy.

There is considerable anger directed towards RWE among many local people in this part of Offaly, who feel blindsided by the proposal. For its part, RWE says it has engaged with the community, answering any questions people may have.

Locals’ primary question is simple: why this particular site? “To identify potential windfarm sites,” says RWE spokesperson Kieran O’Byrne, “developers complete a due diligence exercise whereby they consider a map of Ireland with every Eircode on it, allow a 720m buffer – four times the tip height of a 180m turbine – in line with the 2019 guidelines, rather than the 500m buffer permitted within the existing 2006 legislation – from each house and the land that is left is an indicative viable area for a potential windfarm.

“Then the developer considers other aspects, including wind speeds, any environmental sensitivities, heritage sites, other issues that may preclude a windfarm within the identified viable area.

“These are taken into account and a decision is made if these parameters can be worked within or not, and if so, the development progresses looking at land availability, etc. Detailed studies continue for years thereafter up to submitting a planning application.”

Kilkenny-based O’Byrne says the company “engages with the community a significant number of times during the pre-planning phase, which normally lasts up to two or three years.

“At all times the community liaison officer [CLO] is available by phone and by email and he takes many calls and emails from residents over the years during the pre-planning phase.

“The CLO and the team are available to call to any house or group of residents as required at a mutually agreed time which we do regularly.” O’Byrne does not disclose how much RWE pay landowners, saying such agreements are “confidential” and “commercially sensitive”.

But the payments can be lucrative. The Irish Farmers Journal reported last month that landowners across the country have been paid up to €40,000 per turbine per annum.

John McGarry, director of LP3, a company that specialises in finding sites for wind and solar farms, told the Journal that farmers can earn between €30,000 and €40,000 each year for each turbine on their land. As the turbines have got bigger, so too have the fees commanded. McGarry added that as dwellings cannot be located within four times the height of the blade tip, it can be challenging to find locations.

It is understood that seven landowners in the Rath Beg-Ballincor area have made deals with RWE. When the Irish Independent meets the residents named above, they say they have some sympathy for those who have struck preliminary deals with the company, but caution that the issue is already causing conflict in the area.

Just across the border, in Tipperary, one resident says there is much division in the community over wind turbines that have been erected there. “There’s an awful lot of ill-feeling,” he says, “especially when we have to put up with living near these things and the guy that actually owns the land where some of them are on is much further away. This sort of division is happening the length and breadth of the country.”

O’Byrne says that the 62 households within 1km of the Ballincor Wind Farm will be paid €1,000 each per annum over the next 30 years, while those sited between one and two kilometres from a turbine will be offered between €500 and €1,000 each year.

“In the case of Ballincor,” he says, “the community will benefit from the Community Benefit Fund under the Renewable Energy Support Scheme, which will be in the region of €450,000 per annum for the 15 years of RESS with a similar amount to be paid by RWE for the following 15 years – equating to approximately €13m for community initiatives over the lifetime of the windfarm.

“The two local councils [Offaly and Tipperary] will also benefit in terms of rates at approximately €1.4m per annum between them for the 30 years or so of operation.”

Despite such promises, local Fine Gael TD John Clendennen does not believe the Ballincor development should get the go-ahead.

While he acknowledges rising energy prices and the role of renewables, he says the proposal is in an area of the county that has been ruled out by the council as suitable for windfarms. He forwards a map of the county where developments have been permitted. The Ballincor site is far from such a location.

“When it comes to renewables, we’ve been ambitious and targeted and we’ve designed our own destiny and we’ve done it in a progressive manner. We designated pockets of the county that we saw as suitable for wind development, especially those parts with large banks of bogland. When the council made its considerations, at no stage was an area considered in the south of the county [where Ballincor is located].”

Last November, the Climate Change Advisory Council warned that Ireland was failing to meet its climate targets due to an overreliance on fossil fuels. The country could face fines of up to €26bn if it fails to meet its legally binding 2030 commitments.

But Clendennen says Offaly is one of the top counties per capita when it comes to green energy, arguing that the county, which occupies just 2pc of the island of Ireland’s landmass, provides 8pc of its wind energy.

A large proportion of that power is being generated by turbines on the stretch of the N62 between Birr and Ferbane. On either side of the road, next to the old Derrinlough briquette factory, there’s a large clump of turbines, their blades whirring, the sun glinting off them. It used to be the beating heart of Offaly’s commercial turf-cutting operation. There are practically no houses in sight.

Later, over tea at her living room kitchen, she is philosophical about the struggle. “It can feel a bit like David versus Goliath. This is a huge company and we’re a small community. And since we’ve made ourselves known, we’ve been contacted by people in other parts of the country, who are facing something similar.”

Irrespective of what happens – and Dargan is hoping that “sense prevails” – she says there has been a silver lining. “Nowadays, we can all live such individual lives, but this issue has brought people together for a common cause. We’ve got to know each other that bit more. We’re getting to see how resourceful the community is, how much togetherness there is. You can’t put a price on that.”