Summary
- An Coimisiún Pleanála has granted permission for the Tullyneasky West cable landing station.
- The facility will include an ESB substation, switch room, and supporting external plant.
- Fastnet is designed for more than 320Tbps between County Cork and Maryland and is targeted for 2028.
Amazon Web Services has cleared an appeal against its proposed cable landing station near Clonakilty in West Cork, advancing the Irish onshore infrastructure for the Fastnet transatlantic subsea system.
An Coimisiún Pleanála lists the planning appeal for Tullyneasky West as granted. The formal decision was signed on 14 August following an appeal against Cork County Council’s earlier approval, with the decision becoming the latest project milestone to surface as AWS develops the route between County Cork and Maryland.
The development includes demolition of two existing buildings and construction of a cable landing station, an ESB substation, a switch-room building, and external plant. The site is around five kilometres from Clonakilty.
The landing station is not a data centre. It is a telecommunications facility that will terminate the subsea system on land and connect it into terrestrial network infrastructure.
Fastnet brings a new Atlantic route
AWS announced Fastnet in 2025 as a dedicated transatlantic fibre system linking County Cork with Maryland. The company expects it to enter service in 2028 with a design capacity of more than 320Tbps.
The project is intended to give AWS another geographically diverse route across the Atlantic rather than depending solely on existing cable corridors. AWS says the system will connect directly into its network and use optical switching technology that can support future topology changes and additional landing points.
Near shore, the cable is designed with additional steel-wire armouring to reduce exposure to natural and human damage. That physical protection is important because resilience in cloud infrastructure begins well before traffic reaches a data centre. Subsea systems, landing points, terrestrial fibre routes, exchanges, and campus connectivity all form part of the same end-to-end path.
Fastnet also demonstrates how hyperscalers are taking greater control over network assets. Owning or directly developing subsea capacity gives cloud operators more influence over route diversity, bandwidth, latency, and the way traffic is moved between regions.
The West Cork location adds geographic diversity within Ireland. Much of the country’s existing international fibre infrastructure is concentrated around other coastal landing areas, while the new route creates another path into the country’s digital infrastructure.
Planning and marine consent move Fastnet forward
The appeal decision removes a significant onshore planning risk for the landing station. Subsequent reporting also indicates that Amazon has secured the relevant Maritime Area Consent for the offshore route, meaning the project has moved beyond the earlier stage when the marine permission remained outstanding.
The remaining development process still spans several regulatory and engineering environments. A cable project must coordinate offshore surveys and installation, marine permissions, beach landfall, ducts, terrestrial works, power and backup systems at the landing station, and onward network connectivity.
The onshore development itself has faced local scrutiny. The appeal raised issues including traffic, visual impact, fuel storage, and proximity to neighbouring property. The planning process concluded that the development could proceed, while further project permissions and construction sequencing must still align with the offshore installation programme.
AWS has said Fastnet is designed to strengthen resilience by creating a route with distinct landing points and providing alternative paths when other cables or network links are disrupted. Those claims will ultimately depend on how the new system is integrated into the wider AWS network and how much practical route diversity it creates from other transatlantic infrastructure.
With the landing-station appeal cleared and the marine consent position advanced, the project has moved another step away from network design and into physical delivery. The remaining permitting, offshore installation, landfall works, station construction, and terrestrial connection now have to align with AWS’s target of placing Fastnet into operation in 2028.
