Mining: Tynagh and Donegal

Throughout the economically stagnant decades of the 1970s and 1980s a number of local disputes about national resources emerged across the country. The diverse and varied geological make-up of mountainous areas in the north-west or in County Wicklow were identified as holding potentially lucrative reserves of gold, zinc and uranium while the off-shore oil and gas fields of the Atlantic Shelf remained untapped. The extent to which successive Irish governments disposed of the nation’s natural resources became the subject of considerable controversy leading to many campaigns which combined a resource protection frame with one of concern about democratic deficit as the activities of government ministers was called into question in regard to their dealings with mine and exploration companies. The legal framework for resource protection was also criticised by campaigners who feared that Ireland’s natural resources were being sold off in a series of over-generous deals which provided no financial gain for the Irish taxpayer in addition to extensive ecological damage and limited concern for the local communities involved. The methods employed in the process of mining became an issue of contention for communities.