PLANS for a controversial mussel farm in Kinsale Harbour are now “dead in the water” according to those who campaigned against it.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine granted Woodstown Bay Shellfish Ltd an aqualicence last year for the operation on a 23-hectare site close to Dock Beach.

This was then appealed to the Aquaculture Licences Appeal Board (ALAB) in June 2025, with 147 appeals submitted.

The application was then deemed “withdrawn” in June of this year after the company failed to furnish requested reports in time to the board.

ALAB determined that further information was required and the applicant was to submit extensive additional information including a Nature Impact Statement (NIS) by May 8.

There had been fears that the company might seek a judicial review of the ALAB determination, three months from the decision by the board, which was issued on June 16. However, no papers were received by ALAB and the project is not listed on their website. Dr Marc Ó Riain, of the Save Dock Beach Campaign, said the story of the proposed mussel farm stretches back to 2008.

“What followed was an extraordinary long licensing process, extending across almost two decades and culmination in one of the clearest demonstrations of community solidarity Kinsale has seen in recent times,” he said.

“When it was eventually publicly advertised in 2019, the people of the town began to understand its scale and location. That first consultation generated 602 submissions but because of an error in the original notice, the application was advertised again in 2021, attracting a further seven submissions.”

He said that the 609 submissions should have left no doubt about the depth of public concern surrounding the proposed mussel farm.

“Yet in May 2025, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine decided to grant the aquaculture licence. That decision awakened something remarkable. Swimmers, rowers, sailors, fishermen, environmental groups, residents, businesses and families came together.

“People who might never normally have found themselves on the same side of a campaign discovered that they shared something fundamental: a belief that Kinsale Harbour is not an empty space on a licensing map. It is a living place.”

More than 7,000 people signed a petition against the mussel farm. Marc said: “This was people power expressed responsibly: not through anger alone but through research, evidence, organisation, persistence and participation in the legal process.”