The Gweedore Turf Burning Station

After the end of the emergency or World War 2 for those of you outside Ireland, the Irish Government decided to begin a large-scale development of one of their natural resources the wild peat bogs of Ireland to be overseen by Bord na Móna. Part of this exercise was to be the building of turf-burning stations across Ireland. This would not only provide much-needed local employment but help bring electricity to rural Ireland. Work began on the first 4 stations in the west of Ireland Scríb, Co. Galway, Miltown Malbay in Co. Clare, Cahersiveen in Co. Kerry and Gweedore in Co. Donegal. These would eventually cost £500,000 each.

Work began in Gweedore in 1954 on the picturesque banks of Loch Mhín na Cuinge. and the station was commissioned in 1958.

When the construction of Gweedore and Clady stations was in progress, the metering for supply to the site was mounted at the roadside, on a pole. The meter reader for the area dutifully recorded the readings on his rounds and made his returns in the regulated manner.

Of course, the meter on the pole was purely for records purposes, and it must have been a puzzled Site Clerk who found in the post one morning a notification that if the E.S.B. bill wasn't paid in seven days, the supply would be cut off!

Gweedore has always been noted for its efficiency.

Built in one of the most spectacular locations in Ireland the Gweedore turf Burning station was a huge, green, steel building, it soared incongruously out of the rugged landscape of north-west Donegal. Standing on the banks of Loch Mhín na Cuinge at the foot of the majestic peak of Errigal the highest mountain in Donegal it was surrounded by the beauty of the wild western Donegal.

The ESB began operating the power station in 1958. The energy it generated was initially fed into the Donegal loop and subsequently into the national grid. Hand-cut turf was taken from 200 local suppliers who lived within a 20-mile radius. The turf was hauled there initially by cart and later by tractor.

Gweedore station stood like a monument to the achievement of the local people who played a major part in the station's operation. Two miles away, at the mouth of the lake, the Clady river was been diverted to form the head race for the remote-control hydro station.

The two stations, Clady and Gweedore, supplied a total of 9MW to the Irish electricity network. Negligible, you might think; but the change in the economic conditions in the locality was sufficient to justify the cost of building and running these remote stations, without any reference to their efficiency, which, by all reports was beyond reproach.

Around 30,000 tons of turf was burned annually when the station was at its peak. This was a much-needed source of additional income for subsistence farmers in the area of not just Gweedore but the Rosses and Cloughaneely.  

When operations began it was at first not easy to get supplies of sufficient quantity and quality to meet the stations requirements.

As the station grew however the ESB had to administer a quota system among the 380 contractors.

While most of the turf supplied was of a decent standard the quality of some was questionable.

One man’s jobs was to go around and inspect the clamps of turf on the bogs supplying the station, to ensure that it was dry enough before it is brought to the station by lorry.  

If the turf arriving at the station was too wet, it had to be rejected, as it would not burn efficiently in the furnaces.

One former employee recorded in the 70’s that:

"The turf would be tipped into a big hopper, then carried off into a grate which was eight or nine feet wide, to be burned. The heat produced converted the water supplied by the local lake into steam and this was used to drive the turbines "fire eats steel" and he can remember how at one stage the chimney on the power station had to be replaced as it wasn't lagged to protect it from the surging heat. "The station provided much-needed employment for the local area," he added. "Although it was never viable, never made a profit, the ESB kept it going."

With a minimal level of electrical output and running at a constant financial loss why was the Turf Burning station built and then kept open in Gweedore?

The first reason was to support the rural electrification exercise which had begun in Gweedore in August 1954 and had finished in July 1955.

The second was to obviously boost the local economy in a deprived area of Ireland more used to emigration rather than indigenous industry.

Gweedore and the surrounding parishes had been used to its menfolk leaving the parish from St Patrick's day until Christmas to toil in the tattie fields of Scotland or to work in the building sites of England. Many would never return permanently and instead raise their families in Irish enclaves of London, Liverpool and Glasgow.

Supplying the turf-burning station gave an income that allowed some to stay at home.

The rise in the standard of living for some was evident in the number of homes that owned a car or in whose kitchens people would gather to watch the evolving RTE on television.

However, the Turf station would never make a profit and it was finally closed in 1996.

Despite locals pleading to use the building for a cultural centre, it was finally demolished in 2002.

The Clady Hydro Electric plant is however still in operation.

So ended the Turf burning station that had so helped the electrification of Gweedore and the surrounding parishes and who brought light to Gweedore.