The Ireland Invasion Scenario and holding all of Europe’s Data

Occasionally, when it seems that things are going not too bad, I like to try and imagine Ireland being invaded, says Colm O’Regan.

Maybe it’s a defence mechanism. If I imagine the country being overrun by hostile forces, it mightn’t be so bad when it does happen. Not that I have any actual plans for this meltdown, other than trying to figure out how to lock the Stira stairs from the inside so as to hide in the attic, or putting an extra four-pack of beans in the trolley at Lidl.

I’ve always had this fatalistic bent, although I was a bit more prepared before. From a young age I knew exactly what to do if Nazis arrived to the back door but for some reason didn’t check the front one.

My escape route was clear: out the window, onto the roof of the porch, across the lawn, down the field to the Mill Road, climb over the wall to the river field, follow the river up to the woods around Dripsey Castle where, for some reason, the Nazis wouldn’t look in or strafe.

For a long time now, Ireland has been relatively safe from invasion. Our main existential threats are from Atlantic weather fronts and bailouts but no one has really wanted to invade us. We haven’t been strategic for 80 years. America seems to like us - shur aren’t we cousins? And when you look at a map of Europe, even if Putin decided he needed to ‘rescue’ more separatists, he’d probably have enough of a buffer zone long before he got to Wexford.

And, crucially, we don’t have any major natural resource. The US have their own oil now. The EU have the fish and though we grow food, strong property ownership laws mean the Chinese will probably base their farms in Africa.

But then Facebook announced they were opening a new data centre. And Apple are building one in Galway. In fact, Ireland is becoming a data-centre centre.

The way it’s going, Ireland will soon have all of Europe’s Data. Well not all, just the important stuff – like all of Europe’s phone numbers and text messages and selfies. The whole country will be throbbing gently like when your laptop has to do something hard.

If you don’t know what a data centre is, just ask yourself the question – where’s all the camera film gone?

Companies like storing things here because the climate makes it cheaper to keep the machines cool. In other words, the clouds make it handy for the Cloud. But when someone asks you to store something for them, that kind of gives them some rights. Like when the ESB man just waltzes in and reads the meter without so much as a by-your-leave.

The Ireland Invasion Scenario goes something like this: The year is some time in the future. Climate change means that Ireland now stores the world’s data. For some reason our government decides that the giant corporations aren’t paying enough for their electricity bill. They up the price. The corporations refuse point blank. (I can’t imagine quite why they immediately get adversarial – this plot has more holes in it than a string vest.)

The government stands up to them and nationalises the data centres. They’d never do that would they? When we think of an Irish Government, we think of previous ones who wouldn’t stand up to pull up their trousers. But let’s imagine that with civil war politics long gone, years of regular mozzarella and parma ham have made us more European, more bolshie. A charismatic extreme leader is elected through X Factor or The Voice. Someone with medals and a moustache.

The world panics. A US president with Irish heritage declares Ireland needs to be liberated.

The drones arrive.

If anyone needs me I’ll be in the attic counting tins of beans.