EARLIER THIS WEEK, Bord na Móna, the semi-state company, placed the former Derrinlough briquette factory and its 44.5 acre site in South Offaly up for sale online.
The factory only stopped producing briquettes in June, and the 62 former workers are still uncertain of their future with the company. SIPTU has accused the organisation of breaking the terms of the agreement entered over the closure of the site, claiming that Bord Na Móna put the site up for sale without consulting the Union.
Bord na Móna has a duty of care, not just to its employees, but also to our shared industrial heritage and economic history. Derrinlough belongs to the story of Ireland’s fuel sources and its ambitions for self-sufficiency and is the last surviving briquette factory in Ireland. That is why 50 leading academics, unions, environmental organisations, heritage and community groups have signed a letter calling for a halt to the sale of Derrinlough.
We are asking for a halt to the sale to allow time for consultation with local and national stakeholders about the cultural significance of the site and what its best future might be. As a major site of Irish industrial heritage, the case of Derrinlough offers an opportunity to establish best practices as we negotiate a just transition towards a low-carbon future.
Derrinlough factory was designed by the Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf, in conjunction with Bord na Móna. Work began on the construction of Derrinlough in 1957 and was completed in 1959 at a cost of £1.25 million.
Many of the people who worked on its construction would later find employment in the factory.
Although the factory is not on Offaly County Council’s list of Protected Structures, it nevertheless is listed on the County Survey for the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage recognising its architectural and social significance.
Ireland did not have an Industrial Revolution but we have a much-neglected industrial past in linen, sugar beet, distilleries, milling and mining materials such as copper and lead. The peat industry tells the story of rural industrialisation with turf transported by one of the largest industrial railway systems in the world. It also tells a story of postcolonial development and Irish modernity, of cutting-edge engineering, architecture and design, perhaps best exemplified by the briquette itself.
Derrinlough is not only significant for former workers and local communities. Better understanding the momentous transformations that took place in the Midlands in the mid-twentieth century can help us better understand the scale of the energy transition required today.
Rather than effacing the past, or selling it off, a just transition requires acknowledging and valuing what has come before. And in so doing, recognise and value the contribution of the workers and communities associated with this factory.
The idea of a ‘just transition’, developed by the international trade union movement, is that the phasing out of carbon fuels must simultaneously account for significant loss of employment and lifestyle in regions dependent on industrial carbon and, ideally, contribute a groundwork for a new, carbon-neutral society centred on green industrial development.
As international best practice has shown, inclusive and place-based approaches to the transition deliver the best outcomes. This includes consideration of place-based industrial infrastructures and heritage – the hundreds of kilometres of railway, worker’s villages, machinery, and factories – and how they can be repurposed to advance social and environmental goals.
The Government’s own Territorial Just Transition Plan (2022) identifies the important social, economic and cultural value of the peat industry’s heritage, particularly for the Midlands. Fáilte Ireland has recently secured €68 million in EU Just Transition Funding to support regenerative tourism in the Midlands. As part of this strategy, they identify the potential for regenerating and repurposing industrial heritage assets.
Surely, Ireland’s last briquette factory falls within this bracket, and any decision to dispose of the site requires appropriate heritage assessment and public consultation.
Putting a halt to the sale of Derrinlough will allow different interested groups, including workers, local residents, community and development organisations, conservation architects, historians, environmental groups and local authority representatives, the opportunity to come together and imagine alternative uses for the Derrinlough factory site.
It is not for us to pre-empt this process but ideas have already been put forward, including an industrial heritage museum to collect and archive the history of the peat industry over the past 70 years. There are exciting opportunities for creating a hub for the community and workers, raising peatland ecoliteracy as well as preserving the industrial heritage and intangible heritage of the workers and their stories.
The site could become a centre for green social and cooperative enterprises engaged in retrofitting and other essential transition work – particularly important in an area experiencing some of the highest levels of energy poverty and reliance on solid fuel heating.
There is no shortage of ideas for transforming Derrinlough into a vital hub for the Midlands area once again.
If Derrinlough is sold by Bord na Móna, we will no longer have a say in what happens to it. If we don’t stop the sale we will lose an irreplaceable part of our history, as well as the opportunity to create something genuinely positive and beneficial for those most affected by its closure.
We hope the Government and Bord na Móna can see sense and give local communities and stakeholders the opportunity to develop an alternative for the site. If you want to support this campaign, you can add your name to the Uplift petition here: https://t.co/QzfJd2NLc5
Dr Patrick Bresnihan is Lecturer in the Geography Department, Maynooth University. Emma Gilleece is an architectural historian.
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