I recently had the pleasure of touring the Ardnacrusha Power Station in Co Clare (you can get information on the tour here and I also have a video below!) and it was so enjoyable I just have to write about it. This hydroelectric power station was constructed between 1925 and 1929 (at the same time as the national grid with the ESB or Electricity Supply Board established in 1927), and constituted a massively ambitious civil and electrical engineering project that cost the fledgling Irish state almost 20% of its revenue budget in 1925 or £5.2 million. Electricity is now something we take entirely for granted in the developed world but rural electrification in Ireland didn't really gain traction until the 1950s - although there was some electrification from the late 1800s this was fairly limited, and there were still 400,000 rural homes without electricity in the early 1940s: the Ardnacrusha project represented the beginning of electrification in earnest. At the time of its construction in 1929 this power station was capable of supplying 100% of the electricity needs of the country but today it only supplies about 2.8% or 46,000 homes. The project was spearheaded by an Irish engineer called Thomas McLaughlin who worked for the German company Siemens-Schuckert which was given the contract for the build.
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About my blog
Really, it contains a little bit of everything, from a celebration of science and the English language to the joys of travel and the Shipping Forecast. The title ('Meanderings') is a fairly accurate description of its content: I write about different things as the mood takes me, but hopefully there's something in here for everyone... Categories
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March 2021
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