Galway is the leading location for a new naval installation as part of a rethink on how Ireland should police its vast western sea area.
Tanaiste Simon Harris announced last week that a four-week consultation is now open to assess public opinion on Ireland’s first ever National Maritime Security strategy.
Speaking in the Dáil last week, Harris confirmed new Naval Service facilities along the west coast would form part of the project.
He was responding to questions from Galway West TD John Connolly (FF ), who reminded Harris, also Minister for Defence, that the 2022 Commission on the Defence Forces recommended Galway city as a desired location for a new Naval Reserve facility. This Commission recommended that new and specialist military reserve units should be established in areas of large population density likely to provide appropriate skill sets.
Speaking to the Galway Advertiser, military analyst Senator Tom Clonan expects Galway to trump other mooted locations for a maritime security base – staffed by Naval Reserve and other personnel – such as Dún Laoghaire in Dublin, and Kilybegs, Co Donegal.
“Having a new naval installation on the west coast is a no brainer. And having it near existing air facilities is also a no brainer,” he said, referring to Knock and Shannon, but also retention of Galway Airport for strategic and investment purposes, especially refuelling long-range maritime surveillance aircraft, and search and rescue assets.
“It’s an absolute given that the south and west Atlantic approaches are favourite routes for organised crime gangs into Europe, especially cocaine. Also, we are set to become the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of marine and offshore wind energy in the coming decades. International investors want to know their money is safe from terrorism, sabotage and other threats, so we need that west coast naval presence as an expression of our sovereignty,” he said
“The days of a coastal patrol vessel going up and down the west coast from Cork are gone. We need a coordinated air and maritime capability like every other developed nation. People say Ireland is a small, insignificant country, but from a strategic perspective, Ireland has huge importance by virtue of our location controlling the western and northern approaches to Europe, and at the very least, we need to see what is happening in them.”
Coastal patrol
In 2024, the government’s Defence Policy Review highlighted an increase in suspicious activity affecting confidence in undersea fibre optic cables and energy infrastructure throughout Irish waters.
Ed Burke is Assistant Professor in the History of War at University College Dublin. He expects the Irish government is also coming under pressure from its European partners to better monitor Ireland’s 450,000 square km Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ ) marine territory, ten times the size of its landmass.
Burke suggests a naval facility on the west coast could become important infrastructure to support new monitoring technologies such as military-grade sonar and radar currently being sourced by the Defence Forces. Last week, the Naval Service signed a multi-million euro contract with Thales to supply a ship-towed sonar for detecting illegal fishing, drug trafficking, terrorism and espionage below the surface.
“This is a basic exercise in sovereignty, and if we don’t exercise our sovereignty [over the EEZ] including seeing what lies beneath in terms of sub-sea cables and electricity infrastructure, then someone else will, be it the United States or France or whoever,” says Burke. “If we don’t have the ability to detect what’s going on – like at the moment, activity by Russia – then there will be a response [from other militaries] in our space, and we won’t be able to detect that either.”
“Galway makes complete sense, not least because maritime security warrants an interdiction element, and proximity to Renmore means access to special forces personnel,” he added.
A planning application for a deep water docking facility for Galway Harbour is currently with an Bord Pleanála, and these plans are understood to include a dedicated naval wharf. Works on a €30m deep water quay in Ross an Mhil in south Conamara are currently underway, also designed to cater for naval and large marine survey vessels.
Throughout its history, Galway has had surprisingly little naval infrastructure, despite the city itself thought to have grown up around a wooden naval fort, Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe, built by King of Connacht, Turlough O’Connor, to house his fleet, in 1124. Later rebuilt in stone, then destroyed by fire and war, remains of this castle were discovered beneath the Aran Sweater Market, on Quay Street, in 2016.
Ceann an bhalla, today known as the Spanish Arch, was originally constructed as a naval gun emplacement built to protect Galway from a feared Spanish invasion during the sixteenth century. In the early 1800s, three Martello towers were erected at strategic points around Galway Bay to protect approaches to Galway city and Oranmore from French invasion.
In the nineteenth century, Renmore Barracks briefly hosted a Naval gun emplacement, while in the city centre, there was a naval battery located at the junction of Fairhill and Grattan Road manned by Royal Navy reservists from the Claddagh, known locally – and perhaps derisively – as the ‘The Gunna Mórs’.
Closing date for submissions to the National Maritime Security strategy is July 11. See www.gov.ie
