Adaptation, globalisation and loss: A more-than-human history of hydro-electricity in mid-century Ireland

Project Description

This research addresses an urgent challenge at the heart of efforts to tackle the climate crisis; how to develop renewable energy projects, without damaging vulnerable ecologies. It does so by examining the historical development and impact of three hydro-electric schemes built on the rivers Liffey, Erne and Lee between 1937 and 1952. The unique assemblage of interdependent living creatures and human economies that characterised these river landscapes was permanently transformed by these dams. Due to their rare, and threatened ecologies, these river landscapes have long been the subject of scientific studies. Yet little has been done to marry this scientific knowledge with the social and environmental history of these dams or to uncover the relationships between humans, plants, and animals before and after their construction. This project will address this imbalance. This will be a stratigraphic story, making visible the layers of animals, humans and organic forces that connected these local landscapes with networks of global industry and commerce. Examining the Liffey, Erne and Lee schemes together provides a unique opportunity to explore a programme of dam building over both a broad time period, and a wide geographic scale. Ireland also provides a unique case study. In the mid-twentieth century it was both a western European and a newly independent postcolonial country, with an emerging economy. It therefore provides valuable comparisons with similar developments in both the global North and South. The project’s novel interdisciplinary methodology will offer universal tools that can be applied to landscapes beyond Ireland. Providing a wider historical context that reflects on the legacy of these huge infrastructural developments for animals, plants and humans will inform discussions regarding best practice for responding to the climate crisis.