The spark that lit modern Ireland

SEVENTY-FIVE years ago, on July 22, 1929, a massive hydro-electric project at Ardnacrusha was publicly unveiled at a ceremony presided over by WT Cosgrave, president of the executive council of the Irish Free State.

The Shannon scheme was the most ambitious engineering scheme in the history of the state. When the state was founded in 1922, the new government found itself with a very unsatisfactory electricity infrastructure.

Despite having had two reports on the situation presented to it at this early stage in the country’s development, no suggested scheme could be undertaken until the state’s political problems were resolved.