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Project title

Contested Transitions: Environmental Conflicts and Justice in Rural Ireland

Primary Funding Agency

Irish Research Council

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

Environmental Protection Agency

Lead Organisation

Irish Research Council (MU)

Lead Applicant

Criost�ir King

Project Abstract

The low-carbon transition is underway in Ireland, situated in European and international efforts to curb emissions. However, the transition is not straightforward, as policies championed by the EU and Irish government create new environmental conflicts around transition fuels, the sourcing of critical minerals for new technologies, and large-scale renewable energy, all of which threaten rural landscapes and livelihoods. Such conflicts contest dominant narratives around sustainable development, raise questions around global climate justice, and highlight the significance of rural geographies, communities and ways of life in the low-carbon transition. Many of today’s most pressing conflicts take place in historically marginalised, rural parts of Ireland. Campaigns are led by local communities who face powerful state and commercial actors. It is important to understand how the communities at the frontline of new developments perceive the projects they oppose, which environmental narratives win out, and what can be learned from this for the purpose of achieving a just transition. I have identified three case studies within which this problematic can be studied. These are the conflicts around Shannon LNG in North Kerry, gold mining in the Sperrins in Northern Ireland, and opposition to large-scale wind farms in the midlands and North West of Ireland. Public discourse often reduces environmentalism to the work of environmental NGOs or the state’s technocratic solutions. Instead, I aim to contribute to an understanding of how environmental conflicts are perceived by those at the frontlines of resistance, thus broadening the scope of what can be considered environmental. The project asks: what is understood as “environmental” in the competing discourses which shape environmental conflicts in Ireland. Such research can form an important contribution to the overarching goal of achieving a just transition, as set out in the European Green Deal, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

Grant Approved

�112,000.00

Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

01/09/2023

Initial Projected Completion Date

31/08/2027