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Carnsore Point (Carn tSóir or Ceann an Chairn in Irish) is a headland in the very South East corner of County Wexford, Ireland. This headland is Ireland's southern limit point of the Irish Sea, on the western side of St George's Channel.

Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century AD) described a point called Ιερον (Hieron, "sacred promontory") which probably referred to Carnsore Point.

Cancelled nuclear project

Carnsore was proposed to be the location of a Nuclear Energy Board power plant. If built as proposed in in the 1970s, the plant would have produced electricity for the Electricity Supply Board. First proposed in 1968, the then Government of Ireland gave renewed effort to the plans after the 1973 energy crisis. The plan envisaged one, and eventually four, nuclear power stations. However, the plan was (discreetly) dropped in the late 1970s after opposition by environmental groups, including the Wexford group the Nuclear Safety Association and others. The campaign against the proposed plant also gained some international support, including from Petra Kelly, who gave a speech at Carnsore. One activist against the plant who later became notable was Adi Roche. Roche focused on the suffering experienced by children in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and founded Chernobyl Children International.

Anti-nuclear groups organised a series of rallies and concerts at Carnsore Point from August 1978 to August 1981. Titled "Get to the Point" and "Back to the Point" respectively, and featuring Christy Moore as lead act, the concerts were served to bring to public notice the question of nuclear power in Ireland. The British and Irish Communist Organisation, who believed nuclear power was necessary to achieve socialism in Ireland, picketed the first concert.

Notes

1. C.Michael Hogan. 2011. Irish Sea. eds P.Saundry & C.Cleveland. encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington DC Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine
2. "Ireland" (PDF). romaneranames.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2019.
3. ^ Leonard, Liam; Barry, John (2007). The Environmental Movement in Ireland. Springer. ISBN 9781402068126.
4. Women on War: an international anthology of Women's Writings from Antiquity to the Present edited by Daniela Gioseffi. Feminist Press, 2003 (pg.340)
5. Going Nuclear: Ireland, Britain, and the campaign to close Sellafield by Veronica McDermott. Irish Academic Press, 2008 (pg.263)
6. Comment magazine, 8 September 1978, pp. 1–3.

External links

• Nuclear Energy (An Bord Fuinnimh Núicléigh) Act, 1971
• Carnsore: Why Ireland never got nuclear power (archived 2004)
• ESB to open wind farm at Carnsore Point (2003)

52°10′14″N 6°21′20″W / 52.17056°N 6.35556°W / 52.17056; -6.35556

• Headlands of County Wexford
• Power stations in the Republic of Ireland
• Wind farms in the Republic of Ireland
• Cancelled nuclear power stations