From the Bog to the Cloud: Dependency and Eco-Modernity in Ireland

by Patrick Bresnihan, Patrick Brodie

Overview

The green, digital transition is underway. But what does this transition look like when dictated by the energy and resource demands of monopoly tech? How has this situation come to be? And where is it being resisted?

This provocative book uncovers the hidden intersections of land, resource extraction and climate policy in the transition to “greener” and “smarter” economies. Challenging eco-modern and techno-solutionist approaches, the book links narratives of sustainability with colonial histories and uneven development, arguing that tech-driven transitions replicate exploitative patterns of imperial capitalism. Using Ireland as a focal point, the authors show how the history and depth of the country’s postcolonial dependency on multinational investment, especially US technology companies, comes into friction with disparate land-based struggles.

Thinking with these movements, the book offers a critique of dependent models of development and proposes an anti-imperialist approach to environmental politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781529241969
Publisher:	Bristol University Press
Publication date:	10/24/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192

About the Author

Patrick Bresnihan is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University.

Patrick Brodie is Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin.

Patrick Bresnihan is a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. He works across the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. His current research focuses on data centres, renewable energy infrastructures and bog landscapes in the context of the global ‘green’ transition and environmental justice. .

Table of Contents

Introduction – Why Are There So Many Data Centres in Ireland?

Chapter 1 - Energetic Mediation and Imperial Geographies

Chapter 2 - Bog Modernity and Energy Decolonisation

Chapter 3 - Data Centre Land

Chapter 4 - Atmosphere Meets Cloud

Chapter 5 - The Value of a Bog

Chapter 6 - Land, Extractivism, and Anti-Imperialist Environmentalism

Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

‘Timely, academically rigorous and politically incisive, this book reveals how the thrum of Ireland’s data centres is the sound of neo-colonialism and global imperialism in action. Should be read and understood as a clarion call for an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist Ireland.’ Kai Heron, Lancaster Universityand coauthor of Radical Abundance: How to Win a Green Democratic Future

‘A remarkable intervention that traces the arc of Ireland’s abiding role as a ‘laboratory,’ from the era of direct colonialism to today’s monopoly tech capitalism. Bringing Irish political economy into direct conversation with theories of dependency and imperialism, this stimulating book refreshes debates on internationalism, eco-socialism and democratic planning in the 21st century.’ Thea Riofrancos, Providence College and author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism

‘An essential guide to the political ecology of big tech on the ground and in the state. As data centres proliferate, this book’s insights are essential to strategizing new ways through the contradictions of green growth and (post)colonial development.’ Anne Pasek, Trent Universityand co-author of Digital Energetics

‘A timely and essential investigation of the deep economic and social power relations which route themselves through the Irish state. Essential reading for understanding the command of transnational capital in Ireland.’ Conor McCabe, Queens UniversityBelfast and author of Sins of the Father

‘With careful attention to both local and planetary scales, Bresnihan and Brodie take us on a meticulously researched, elegantly theorized journey that challenges dominant infrastructural narratives of progress as they congeal in the promises of a jointly articulated green, digital transition in Ireland and beyond. Historicizing Ireland’s position as a colonial laboratory on the world-historical stage, they expose how cycles of dispossession repeat in the transition from a “spud” economy into a “chip” one. Not content with only telling the story of how such uneven inheritances condition the present, they simultaneously map the contours of local resistance to this dispossession, keeping their personal and political stakes in this resistance refreshingly explicit. This is a stellar achievement of politically grounded scholarship in environmental media studies and essential reading for anyone concerned with the intensifying influence and impact of Big Tech on land and life.’ Jordan Kinder, Wilfrid Laurier Universityand author of Petroturfing: Refining Canadian Oil through Social Media

From the Publisher