Irish defence forces aircraft and shis were called into action this week off the Galway coast after being alerted to the presence of two Russian Government vessels sailing in the area of the recently-laid Galway to Iceland communications subsea cable.
The two Russian vessels, the Umka and the Bakhtemir, raised serious concerns among Irish military officials due to their movements around the IRIS high-speed, subsea communications cable, which became operational last year and runs west off the Galway coast.
Iris, a new high-speed subsea cable system that spans approximately 1,700km in length and connects Galway to Iceland, is now complete and marks the first direct connection between the two countries.
It is deployed and maintained by Farice, a telecommunications service company owned by the Icelandic government that already runs two other subsea cables from Iceland to Scotland and Denmark.
Poised to greatly increase capacity and diversity of internet connections to Ireland, Iris runs between Galway Bay and Thorlakshofn on the south coast of Iceland – a location chosen because of its proximity to both Reykjavik and the country’s growing data centre industry.
The presence of the Farice system landing in Galway will provide direct high-capacity links to Iceland but also to Northern Europe via Denmark and will greatly increase capacity and connectivity in the Galway region.
However, with tensions high following the recent sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, there is increased monitoring of any activity near such sensitive subsea facilities and the Irish Defence Forces became alarmed when they saw the two Russian vessels over the cable route this week.
Both ships had been involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, resulting in them being sanctioned by the US government.
However, it is now believed that their circuitous route was in order for them to avoid bad weather, rather than for any strategic reasons.
