Water, Noise, and Energy: The Story of Irish Hydropower in Three Plays
Huber,Kate
Huber,Kate
Abstract
Hydroelectric power projects were an integral part of twentieth-century postcolonial modernisation in Ireland. In 1925, the Cumann na nGaedheal government began the Shannon Scheme, which created the then-largest dam in Europe at Ardnacrusha. Hydroelectric power stations have since emerged across Ireland, from Poulaphouca and Ballyshannon to Inniscarra and Carrigadrohid. Despite the importance of hydropower in shaping Irish environments, ecocritical scholars like Matthew Henry and Sharae Deckard have shown that depictions of hydropower are generally understudied in the environmental and energy humanities and in Irish studies. This article traces twentieth-century hydroelectric power projects in Ireland through three plays: Denis Johnston’s The Moon in the Yellow River (1931), Frank Harvey’s Farewell to Every White Cascade (1958), and Conor McPherson’s The Weir (1997). Depictions of hydropower in these stage and radio dramas reveal an ongoing cultural awareness of one of modernity’s more insidious pollutants, namely, noise pollution. Exploring sound elements in representations of hydropower across diverse media and genres requires grappling with the legacy of colonialism on material environments in technocratic solutions to postcolonial national development and to planetary crises like climate change. Using postcolonial ecocritical and ecomedia studies lenses, this article analyses aural environments in Johnston, Harvey, and McPherson’s plays to elucidate intersections of medium, energy extraction, and hydropower that continue to resonate across Ireland. Besides providing historical insight into changing relationships with material environments, these plays also expose environmental and multispecies injustices caused by energy extraction projects on Ireland’s rivers. The aural environments in these plays also raise questions about what kind of modernisation and infrastructure projects would support multispecies modernities for more just and decolonial futures. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how these twentieth-century literary representations of hydroelectric energy extraction imagine alternative possibilities to anthropocentric modernisation through attending to multisensory and multispecies attachments to place.
Description
Date
2025
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Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
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Keywords
energy, hydroelectric, hydropower, theatre, radio, Ireland, multispecies, ecomedia, environment, sound studies, SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 13 - Climate Action, SDG 14 - Life Below Water, SDG 15 - Life on Land, SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
Citation
Huber, K 2025, 'Water, Noise, and Energy: The Story of Irish Hydropower in Three Plays', Humanities, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 1-20. < https://doi.org/10.3390/h14110214 >