Ardnacrusha ESB Hydroelectric Station and Fanore Cemetery are featured in the newly launched German Traces in Ireland, a free, downloadable app that marks locations in Ireland with German connections past and present. Ardnacrusha, on the river Shannon, a huge undertaking for the Irish State in 1925 and a milestone in Irish history, was built by the German firm Siemens-Schuckert.
Writer Francis Stuart, controversial for his links with Nazi Germany, is buried at Fanore Cemetery in Craggagh.
Written by journalists Fintan O’Toole and Ralf Sotscheck, and produced by the Goethe-Institut Irland, the map-based German Traces app highlights 20 locations around Ireland with connections to German people and stories; from Handel’s Messiah at Fishamble Street in Dublin to the children of Operation Shamrock in Glencree, County Wicklow to the Ballinderry Sword at the National Museum. Artists, writers and historical figures such as Agnes Bernelle, Imogen Stuart, Heinrich Böll, Aloys Fleischmann, Richard Castle and Friedrich Engels also feature with details of their Irish-German links. Many images, sound bites and short films enrich the app.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.