No quitten we're whelan onto chitchat 12.

I can see it in myself even. I check it way too often. It’s a curse really. The Nokias were ideal, and log onto the laptop at night for an hour or Facebook or dd.

Got a job to do in rural galway near Monivea Does anyone know and concrete suppliers around there?

II'll Be collecting a few meters of lean mix as the job goes along.

CConditional planning has been granted on a separate farm 143hectares in the same area.

IIt has driven up the price of land as a result

It's a spell since I was up there, but 500 hectares is a bigger than most parishes here

We have a lot of wind turbines down here, built on hills and rough land, beside the roadways and the plot they are on, they work away.

But I have to question solar, covering some of the best land, we are told that on a house they don't produce much in winter. Ain't that the most energy hungry time of the year. The wind turbines near me, rarely ever stop, unless for service. Water is another source not really spoken about.

There must be huge money and grants following solar, as companies would not be paying farmers otherwise

The lights were never an issue for housing, it's for the data centres. Housing is at the top of a waterfall approach to a potential blackout (and amber alerts are down through this decade).

Now data centres and big industry will have a license to source their own energy without waiting on an ESB connection, if ye thought it was bad now, two weeks ago the government gave every big industry the license to enter the game for land (solar).

Money coming to the developers for nothing too. I truly hope their business model plummets in the long run. Awful deceit going on across the country.

The sheep are merely a farmer sales pitch when it's just saving the developers purchasing automowers to tidy underneath the panels. I also saw a contract where sheep grazing was only permitted one month per year at something measly like 5 sheep per hA.

As for the Amazon place, what was it really going to achieve anyway? IMO the country needs to slow down a bit regardless of energy. Chasing FDI taxes to inflate everything and cover the countryside in black. Amazon are also involved with BnM Derrygreenagh park there'll be no loss on them.

Thinking bigger picture, and the future of the countryside, if every retiring farmer chose solar for 40years (through death) instead of passing on to either next generation or unrelated young farmer (as is promoted in other European countries), this would kill off any area within two generations.

The 40,000ac of solar for energy is just a 2030 target, there's a new target coming for net zero 2050. Now big industry have entered the game on top of this for own use (no grid required). Considering it's 95% prime farmland, it's very concerning.

AI is likely to double electric demand in the next decade, and any society that isn't all in will be left behind in a way probably starker than now and a non electric society.

The pace of change in the next decade will equal or surpass the last century.

We certainly have become over reliant on foreign multinationals, all eggs in a small basket and everything else left to hell. A bit of balance isn't a bad thing

Having data centres here as opposed to elsewhere isn't going to hamper anyone globally from using AI. We can still benefit without sacrificing the country to price gouging energy developers. The end balance certainly won't be in the favour of normal tax paying citizens, that much is certain

Dung beetles... I must be doing something right. The biodiversity involved in livestock is not fully appreciated.