** for international comparison sake
Ireland has a population of aprox 3,700,000 and an economy based heavily on services (Software (v. v. big %), finance, banking/insurance, telecoms and of course tourism) and light industry like pharma/biotech/high end electronics (e.g. processors)
basically very few heavy industries of the type that would consume massive amounts of power. (which is a good thing from an environmental perspective!) We pretty much skipped the industrial revolution with all its smoke and steel mills and went straight into the information age.
