What happened to Apple's Athenry data centre in planning?
Apple applied to Galway County Council in April 2015 for the first phase of an eight-hall data centre campus at Derrydonnell and was granted permission with conditions that September. Two third-party appeals sent it to An Bord Pleanala, which granted permission on 11 August 2016 (case PL07.245518) - alongside a separate approval the same day for the 220 kV grid connection (BA07.00020). A judicial review was dismissed by the High Court in October 2017, but on 10 May 2018 - month 37 of the process, with a Supreme Court appeal still pending - Apple withdrew, citing delays in the approval process. The Supreme Court dismissed the objectors' appeal in April 2019: the permission stood, 47 months after the application, for a data centre that was never built.
Every filing on the record
A single data hall - phase one of a masterplan for up to eight - at Toberroe and Palmerstown, Derrydonnell, in a 200-hectare forested site. Third-party appeals were lodged in October 2015.
The appeal decision upholding the grant. (Note for researchers: a different ref sometimes cited for this case, PL07.245689, is in fact a boat store in Lahinch.)
The 220 kV substation and grid connection for the campus - the piece of the project that survives on the register today.
A five-year extension of the permission (to August 2026), sought so a purchaser could build the consented scheme, was granted and then quashed by the High Court on environmental-screening grounds.
The court chain, as facts: Fitzpatrick and Daly's judicial review was dismissed by the High Court (McDermott J) on 12 October 2017 ([2017] IEHC 585); a leapfrog appeal to the Supreme Court was allowed in early 2018; Apple withdrew the project on 10 May 2018 citing 'delays in the approval process' (Irish Times); and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on 11 April 2019 ([2019] IESC 23), confirming that environmental assessment attaches to the development actually applied for, not a wider masterplan.
The arithmetic that made this the reference case for planning-delay debates: application to final judicial certainty took 47 months; the investor left at month 37. The permission it left behind briefly acquired a second life - the 2021 extension of duration - before the High Court quashed it in June 2022. What remains built is the grid connection consent, visible on this platform as strategic-infrastructure record VA0020.
What to watch next
- Any fresh application on the Derrydonnell lands - the site remains zoned and grid-adjacent.
- Citations of the case in planning-reform and data-centre policy debate, where it functions as the standing exhibit.
Core documents
The primary sources behind this tracker - reports, orders and official records, linked directly for researchers.
Method: compiled from the public planning register as ingested by PlanningLeads; updated 16 July 2026. Registers move as cases progress - always check the live record before relying on a status. Organisation campuses only; no personal data is reported.