Underground fireworks storage application must be reconsidered
James Cox
The High Court has ordered that a planning application for an underground fireworks storage facility in a rural area of north Mayo should be reconsidered.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys quashed a July 2025 decision by An Coimisiún Pleanála to refuse permission for Rocket Pyrotechnics (Ireland) Ltd to install a shipping container underground for the storage of pyrotechnics at Rathoma, Killala, County Mayo.
It is proposed, subject to licence, to store up to 2,000kg of Hazard Type 1 explosives at the site which will be used solely for storage only and not for the manufacture or sale of supplies.
The judge ordered the decision be reconsidered by the Commission in accordance with his judgment.
The judge said Rocket Pyrotechnics is an indigenous family owned business which has provided professional fireworks and special effects services in Ireland for over 25 years.
The proposed development site is on the lands of the historical Breen family home of one of the principals of the business at Rathoma, Patrick Gerard (Gary) Breen, who is a director of the company.
It employs three full-time staff and 15 freelance, highly trained and specialised technicians. Its team includes creative designers and display managers who deploy state-of-the-art wireless firing technology and special effects equipment, choreographing performances synchronised with firings programmable to within one hundredth of a second.
It provides pyrotechnics for multiple events on a weekly basis at locations nationwide, including large-scale arts, music and sporting events. These have included the Rose of Tralee, Taylor Swift concerts, Aiken Promotions events and Leinster Rugby fixtures.
The company is one of only two remaining indigenous pyrotechnics companies operating in the State, the judge said.
Brexit fundamentally disrupted the supply chain for the company, making it substantially more difficult to secure combustibles and explosives in a timely manner, he said. Two other indigenous Irish pyrotechnics companies have closed since Brexit.
Rocket currently has no storage or sorting facility of its own and each event must be specifically and separately ordered for collection in person from Northern Ireland.
The company, the judge said, is wholly exposed to a volatile supply chain and bears the economic burden of increased costs, being prevented from bulk purchasing and storing supplies to achieve economies of scale as well as reduced transport overheads and shorter lead-in times for events.
"The business is, in consequence, under serious threat", he said.
Two previous planning applications for a similar facility, one in Wicklow and the other in Wexford, were also refused while a previous application for the Mayo site was also refused.
Mayo Co Council also refused the latest application classifying it as “commercial” development with what the judge said was the implied suggestion that it could be in an industrial estate or the like.
That missed the point that storage of dangerous matter is not just any old commercial development, he said. If this was in an industrial estate, and an explosion occurred, other structures could be damaged causing severe economic loss not to speak of personal injury, he said.
Rocket appealed the council's decision and the Commission also refused permission. The company then brought judicial review proceedings.
Mr Justice Humphreys said, among other things, the Commission did not clearly interpret the county development plan.
The judge also commented that ultimately "the problem is that if our society wants fireworks, they have to be stored somewhere".
He said that in general, the best place to keep dangerous materials is the middle of nowhere”.
That applies to anthrax, such as on Gruinard Island in Scotland, and infectious disease specimens, he said.
It also applies to underground nuclear storage which, the judge said, is something "we may need to get used to eventually if the underlying problem of runaway demand for energy cannot be curbed".
