Athenry, Ireland Apple iCloud data center court ruling postponed again

The latest postponement forced the ruling on the matter to be postponed to July 28, reported The Irish Times on Wednesday. It is not clear why the matter has been delayed again, with the next possible court date scheduled for October 12.

Apple unveiled plans to build in Denmark and Athenry on the same day in February 2016. The project in Viborg, Denmark is very near completion, and the first of two Irish data center projects for Apple has not even exited the planning phase.

The spearhead behind the resistance to the Athenry data center is Allan Daly. Daly is an American-born immigrant and environmental engineer, and has raised multiple objections to the data center. Daly's concerns center around strain on the Irish electrical grid and no apparent plans to cope with greenhouse gas emissions from the data center.

Apple's project was initially approved by Irish planning councils, but Daly and fellow residents Sinead Fitzpatrick and Brian McDonagh appealed the decision to Ireland's An Bord Pleanala in Sept. 2015. The appeal wasn't granted, forcing Daly to the High Court for review of the case.

The last hearing in June was postponed over "a lack of judges" available to hear the case. The manpower shortage wasn't that transparent, until a six-person delegation from the "Apple for Athenry" advocacy group arrived and found it closed.

Apple's effort isn't the only one in Daly's cross-hairs. Daly is also fighting a $1 billion Amazon data center in Dublin.