Fergus Cassidy

Electric dreams

"I could know no mental peace, no sense of self-fulfilment until my mission in life, as it had then become to me, was realised. Everything I saw abroad, everything I read of, brought just one thought to my mind - can this development be applied at home? Could we have this in Ireland?"

Flat rate net access? Always-on broadband connections? No, but in strikingly familiar territory, Thomas McLaughlin, the engineer who masterminded the Shannon electrification scheme, made the above remark in 1922.

It's contained in a wonderful book of essays on what became known as the Shannon Scheme, published last year by The Lilliput Press [1]. The book also includes amazing photographs from the ESB and Siemens (main contractor) archives.

The fascinating account of such a massive and historic undertaking includes the background to the formation of the ESB. There were three options being considered by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce: setting up a new government department to manage electricity supply; allowing an Irish private enterprise company to run it or giving it over to a large foreign company to run.

The minister visited the US where a number of companies expressed an interest. Some of them offered him bribes. Plus ca change.

However, McLaughlin urged the Irish government to run it and in 1927 the Electricity Supply Board was created and became the first semi-state body in Ireland. McLaughlin was appointed as managing director.

Thousands of workers were employed on the scheme and applicants were requested to fill in a printed form and address it to 'The Shannon Scheme, Dublin'. Conditions were appaling especially with regard to accommodation. As an indication of how bad it was, a public representative named Clancy from Limerick was quoted as saying that "if something is not done very soon as regards the sanitary arrangements at Ardnacrusha, I greatly fear that an epidemic will break out that will be more serious that the 'flu epidemic in 1918/19".

Needless to say, Patrick McGilligan, the then Minister of Industry and Commerce, became the object of criticism and satire over the conditions:
I am McGilligan, McGilligan, McGilligan!
Never shall you see such wonderful skill again
I've got a plan on
Down where the Shannon
Rolls to the foaming sea.
Jealous folks say it is a bit of a gamble
But we know better, don't we?
For there's Siemens-Schuckert and Gordon Campbell,
Joe McGrath and McLaughlin and me!

After reading The Shannon Scheme it's hard not to appreciate the inventiveness and sacrifices that brought electricity to this country and literally propelled Ireland out of the dark ages. To the men and women who made it happen, nothing seemed impossible. Compare that to today, where nothing seems possible.

The ESB remains like the last standing totem pole, a reminder of a bygone era of achievement in the public interest. Now that lot of Ireland's main utilities have been sold off to private companies (or soon will be), the ESB experience is one that I feel very strongly has validity for today.

Compare the electricity experience with the telecommunications one. Both started as public utilities but one, Telecom Eireann, was sold off amid fanfares and fairytales of stock market snake oil and the poisoned chalice of public shares. And now when this country is in dire need of modernising its telecommunications network, the cupboard is not only bare but padlocked to boot. It's true that the decision to privatise was imposed from Europe, but the previous government didn't have to look so smug as it counted the thirty pieces of silver.

I say that because the price that the government got in the end, was nothing compared to the investment that the Irish people had made in the company over decades. It was also a puny reward for removing this country's ability to control the future of its telecommunications needs. 'You don't control what you don't own' may be a maxim that some would resign to the dustbin of history, but looking at what has happened to Telecom Eireann and the ESB, there's only one company that has been thrashed.

And maybe that history can now come to the rescue. The news that Scottish Hydro-Electric is beginning full-scale commercial trials of broadband over electricity lines [2] has opened up a chink of light that may let in the fresh air of possibility for Ireland's future telecoms. By the end of this year, the ESB will have completed a fibre optic network, providing broadband capability in a figure-of-eight around the country from Buncrana to Cork. Another first for the public-owned company.

I'll leave you with the words of Thomas McLaughlin again: "My country, of which I was so intensely proud, must not lag behind other lands. The people in our remote villages must have comforts which villagers in other lands enjoyed. Electricity, the great key to the economic uplift of the country, must be provided on a national scale, cheap and abundant".

Perhaps the ESB, if given half a chance, can play its part in making broadband a reality. Seems ridiculous or unrealistic?

So did electrification.

---------------------------------------------------------------

LINKS

[1] Quotes and references come from The Shannon Scheme and the Electrification of the Irish Free State, edited by Andy Bielenberg and published by The Lilliput Press, Dublin. ISBN: 1 845351 007/008.

[2] Details of broadband commercial trials in parts of Scotland, announced by Scottish Hydro-Electric

[3] ESB press release launching its fibre optic network roll-out.