Ann Ryan’s home looks across an inlet in the Shannon estuary and straight into a geopolitical crisis. From her front window in south-west Ireland, she can see the factory accused of helping supply Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Chimneys belch smoke and along the lane outside Ryan’s home, a loud thrumming from the squat buildings making up Europe’s biggest producer of alumina fills the air. The Russian-owned plant produces the raw material for aluminium and fears are mounting that this ugly complex in rural Ireland is a cog in Moscow’s military machine.
If it is proven that the Aughinish Alumina output goes into making Russian war weapons used in Ukraine, locals worry in a worst-case scenario it will be closed down. That would threaten almost 900 staff and contractors, in a fresh blow after the closure of a nearby baby formula factory in March put more than 500 people out of work.
“My brother and nephew are working there, so it’s personal,” said Ryan, a retired university administrator. “If it closes down, after the milk factory, it’ll have a huge impact — massive.”
Job fears aside, Aughinish is spiralling into an international political hazard for Ireland, a neutral nation that has just taken over the six-month presidency of the EU.
For four months since an investigation by the Irish Times and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project was published, the government has been on the back foot as questions have intensified about how much of the alumina smelted on the banks of the Shannon ends up in a Siberian aluminium production centre and military-industrial hub.
Ireland’s government has launched an investigation to clear up how much Irish-smelted alumina is exported to Russia, but has yet to report. It says it has no information that the alumina from the plant is finding its way into Russian weapons production.
Aughinish Alumina is not sanctioned and neither is the trade in alumina with Russia. The plant is owned by Rusal, a conglomerate that was founded by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. He owns 45 per cent of En+, which is a majority shareholder of Rusal.
Dublin has shielded Aughinish from a “big push” by other EU countries to include it in the Commission’s packages of sanctions to date, according to an EU diplomat.
How long it can continue to do so is unclear. MEPs last week supported a nonbinding vote in favour of banning exports from the plant to Russia.
Ireland was put on the spot by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the ceremonial EU presidency launch in Dublin on July 1, when he demanded sanctions against companies based in Europe that “keep supplying the aggressor with essential materials, even now”.
He did not publicly name Aughinish, but he did not need to. Taoiseach Micheál Martin got the message, insisting Ireland would ensure no material from any plant in Ireland “goes to support the Russian war machine”.
Rusal initially told Ireland’s national statistics office that 83 per cent of its first-quarter exports went to Russia, but enterprise minister Peter Burke said Aughinish had made a mistake. Rusal said the true figure was 51 per cent, after 45 per cent in 2025.
The government has been reluctant to criticise a major local employer, which has a sign in Russian at the entrance to the plant.
“Sanctions can’t be self-defeating,” said Niall Collins, a junior minister and parliamentarian for Limerick, the county that is home to Aughinish. He echoed concerns that closure would leave the EU with just four other alumina suppliers and hurt Ireland, while having a negligible impact on Russia.
Aughinish says it supplies 10 per cent of Rusal’s total alumina needs in Russia; cutting off supply from Ireland would only ensure Rusal would look to China or India instead, the company says.
Rusal and Aughinish Alumina did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the investigation.
Rusal has previously said it has a ‘‘transparent traceability and end-use control mechanism in place’’ and that the alumina was “processed within a controlled production and export chain, under which the resulting aluminium products were sold to international markets and shipped outside Russia”.
Ireland also would face an energy crunch: Aughinish has a plant that supplies electricity to some 200,000 homes and contributes €25mn to the state-owned Gas Networks Ireland, Aughinish says.
Echoing many residents, local councillor Ger Ward called Zelenskyy’s pointed remarks “highly inappropriate . . . particularly when the Irish taxpayer has spent billions providing accommodation and shelter to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians” fleeing the war.
Many in the local community were unwilling to comment about the sensitive issue. One business owner based in nearby Foynes port, who asked not to be named, said Aughinish had “had a lot of bad press. Everyone here supports it”.
Ryan was born in the 110-year-old house where she still lives and remembers a time when meadows and houses occupied the Aughinish site.
In the late 1970s, Canada’s Alcan began the project, which entered production in 1983. Locals still refer to the factory as “Alcan”, even though it has been through two changes of ownership: Swiss commodities group Glencore took it over in 1999 and Rusal in 2007.
“It was manna from heaven,” said Ger Reidy, 74, who before retiring was a crane driver at Foynes port. He recalled the first equipment arriving in the harbour: “The whole place started to prosper. We haven’t looked back since.”
Ireland then was still a poor, rural economy with high unemployment and emigration. All the picturesque area around Aughinish had going for it was its reputation as the birthplace of Irish coffee, the Wyeth baby milk factory in the nearby village of Askeaton and a major power plant.
“It was a new lease of life into the place,” said Carmel Ryan of the Askeaton Civic Trust. “But on the flip side, it looks horrible and no one knows what the outcome will be in terms of the environment.” Nearby lands are home to a protected game sanctuary and butterfly preserve. Large red expanses of bauxite residue are visible on the site.
Irish people remain conflicted on the issue. A recent Ireland Thinks poll found 46 per cent of respondents wanted to halt alumina exports to Russia, even if it put jobs at risk; 41 per cent said no.
Burke says he “can’t give any assurances” about jobs but promises the government report will be out “pretty imminently”. It will then be passed to the European Commission. But he has ruled out nationalising Aughinish.
Ireland faces a testing few months. “There’s a lot of worry inside [the plant],” said Ryan, the local resident. “I don’t think this will go away.”
