Elaine Loughlin: Ireland is dangerously exposed to sabotage beneath the sea — and we’re not ready

Ireland’s seabed carries our data, power and gas — but political inaction leaves us dangerously open to attack

In 2026, this site in Youghal, Co Cork will become the Irish end of the Celtic Interconnector linking the Irish and French electricity networks — just one of Ireland's myriad electricity, gas, and internet links to the world. Picture: Dan Linehan

In the deepest depths of our oceans, hundreds of tiny hollow tubes not much bigger than a garden hose carry information that powers the globe.

It takes just a fraction of a second for data to travel across the Atlantic, pulsing at almost the speed of light through cables that traverse subsea canyons, mid-ocean ridges, and abyssal plains.

In his latest novel, Twist, published last month, Colum McCann vividly describes the utter disruption and destruction that is caused when one of these tiny tubes is damaged. Whether by natural disaster or sabotage, the outcome is the same, as communication slows or is fully halted.

In 'Twist', Colum McCann vividly describes the disruption wrought when undersea cables are damaged — whether by accident or sabotage. File picture: Jeff Pachoud/AFP/Getty

“Who knows what it was that the cable was carrying at the time, all the love notes, all the algorithms, all the financial dealings, the solicitations, the prescriptions, the solutions, the insinuations, the theories, the chess games, the sea charts, the histories, the contracts, the divorce papers, the computer hacks, the wild lies, the voices, the terror, the nonsense, the known, the unknown, the promises, the porn, the alphabet of flesh, the sing-song of skin, the million wisps of disinformation, the flotsam of our longings, the jetsam of our truths, all of it, all, suspended in a series of wet tubes at the bottom of the ocean floor.”

His novel delves deep into how, in this hyperconnected world, many of us still cannot escape a fractured and in some cases isolated existence.

“Our lives, even the unruptured ones, bounce around on the sea floor. For a while, we might brush tenderly against one another, but eventually, and inevitably, we collide and splinter.”

A map of undersea internet cables showing the many links between the US and Ireland and other countries in Europe. Picture: TeleGeography

But on a more surface level, the book tracks the crew of the Georges Lecointe as it sails up the western coast of Africa to the site of a cable break, eventually using primitive grapnel hooks to lug the pipes out of the ocean for repair.

Around 97% of the world’s communications and internet traffic travels through the network of undersea cables.

Three quarters of those cables in the northern hemisphere pass through, or are close to, Ireland.

Although invisible to most of us, the world heavily depends on international undersea cables for electricity, gas, and internet — including this 6,600km fibre optic cable linking Arrietara in Spain's Basque country with Virginia in the US. File picture: Ander Gillenea/AFP/Getty

Gas is also funnelled in pipes underwater: In 2023, Ireland imported 81.6% of its total primary energy requirement via the sea. 

Ireland’s electricity network too is connected to Britain via undersea cables, and the Celtic Interconnector currently under construction between Cork and Brittany will link us to France in 2026.

It leaves this country with massive responsibility and, given our skeleton defensive capabilities, extremely exposed.

While our ability to protect our seas is more often raised in the context of patrolling waters against the high-profile shipments of drugs, the potential for and threat of underwater sabotage, either to communication cables or gas pipelines, is equally concerning.

Europe on high alert

Europe is now on high alert after a series of ruptures and outages to cables and pipelines in recent times.

In September 2022, as Russia continued its attack of Ukraine, a series of underwater blasts ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe, the cause of which has yet to be determined.

Crew members aboard a French Navy Atlantique 2 surveillance plane patrolling the Baltic Sea in January to protect undersea cables and pipelines from sabotage. File picture: John Leicester/AP

Last November, two separate high-profile incidents in the Baltic Sea also raised suspicions of Russian involvement.

Amid heightened tension, Nato announced in January that it would be launching new patrol and surveillance operations in the Baltic Sea.

“Across the alliance, we have seen elements of a campaign to destabilise our societies through cyberattacks, assassination attempts, and sabotage, including possible sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea,” Nato chief Mark Rutte said.

So far, investigations involving the US and a number of European security services have not made any conclusive findings that Moscow was behind an intentional targeting of cables.

Micheál Martin addressing the inaugural subsea cable security and resilience symposium at the historic Valentia Island transatlantic cable station in October 2024 in Valentia, Co Kerry. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan

Instead, other theories — including accidental damage caused by inexperienced crews dragging anchors across the seabed — have been put forward.

The murky nature of sabotage carried out far beneath the surface is difficult to prove and similar accusations have been made against China after a number of undersea cables were damaged in the waters around Taiwan.

But the threat still exists and Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which covers an area of 437,500sq km, more than six times its land area, is wide open.

Irish Defence Forces personnel — including members of the Army Ranger Wing, the Air Corps, and the Naval Service — conducting a surveillance exercise in the vicinity of Dublin Port. Picture: Óglaigh na hÉireann

In the Dáil this week, Malcolm Byrne highlighted a number of instances over the past two years of Russian vessels operating within Irish waters.

He gave the examples of two Russian-flagged ships, the Umka and the Bakhtemir, that were detected off the coast of Galway in April 2023, while in May of that year four Russian naval vessels including the Admiral Grigorovich, a warship armed with cruise missiles, were located in Irish waters.

Ireland's electricity network is already connected to Britain, and the 575km Celtic Interconnector currently under construction between Youghal in Cork and Brittany will link us to France in 2026. 

In January 2024, the air corps was deployed to monitor the Russian shadow fleet vessels and Byrne pointed out that, just last month, Russian-linked ships were detected dropping anchor in the vicinity of undersea cables.

In a research paper published in the 2024 edition of the Defence Forces Review, Lieutenant Wietse Buwalda pins Ireland’s vulnerability on the “inaction” of successive governments and limited capabilities of agencies charged with its protection.

A 2019 government commitment to publish a new national security strategy has yet to be developed.

Defence Forces personnel aboard the CASA CN235 maritime patrol aircraft monitoring foreign warships in Irish-controlled waters. Picture: Óglaigh na hÉireann

“The near total vacuum in Ireland’s maritime security framework leaves the country vulnerable to a range of threats and challenges, the lack of publishing such a strategy is a threat in of itself,” Lt Buwalda argued.

The programme for government does promise to prepare a revised national security strategy which reflects the changed geopolitical landscape that Europe and Ireland confronts, but no timeline has been attached to this body of work.

Without further and immediate investment in our naval fleet alongside detection technologies to fully monitor our waters, we really are staring into a vast blue abyss.

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