Residents group in Supreme Court victory concerning wind-farm opposed by Henry Shefflin

A residents group has secured a Supreme Court victory in its battle against a large scale €175 million wind farm opposed by Kilkenny hurling great, Henry Shefflin.

This follows the Supreme Court ruling that Tara Heavey and the Save The South Leinster Way can bring a High Court judicial review challenge against An Bord Pleanála’s green light for the project.

On September 26th 2022, the appeals board gave the go-ahead for the 21 turbine wind farm on a 1,434 hectare site mainly owned by Coillte to the east of the 10-time All Ireland winner’s native Ballyhale in south east Kilkenny.

The Castlebanny wind farm is expected to generate enough clean, green electricity to power the equivalent of around 70,000 homes annually - more than the 68,735 strong housing stock in Co Mayo, according to the latest CSO figures.

The wind farm is a joint venture between FuturEnergy Ireland - made up of Coillte and the ESB - and ART Generation.

Henry Shefflin’s objection was one of around 70 submissions lodged with An Bord Pleanala concerning the contentious Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) and others to lodge objections include four time All-Ireland winner with Kilkenny hurlers and Ballyhale man, Colin Fennelly and the Save the South Leinster Way Group.

The group had eight weeks in which to lodge High Court judicial review proceedings of the appeals board decision and lodged their papers one day outside the eight weeks, according to the High Court, on Monday, November 21st.

In October 2023, a senior High Court judge, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled the judicial review challenge was one day out of time, commenting "the message to applicants is – try to avoid depleting the energy of the court with this sort of application and instead