Assessing the Corrib gas controversy: Beyond ‘David and Goliath’ analyses of a resource conflict

•The 1996 discovery of Corrib gas was regarded as ‘a milestone in Irish offshore exploration and production’ (DMNR, 2001) yet Corrib gas became synonymous with conflict and controversy.•Article draws on original data to illuminate social, economic, environmental and political impacts of oil companies’ activities in northwest Ireland.•The emergence of a community of resistance opposed to the Corrib gas project was not due to NIMBYism or a ‘David and Goliath’ type battle of a rural community against multinational oil companies; conflict can be interpreted as a microcosm of Irish state hydrocarbon management.•Raises fundamental issues of society-environment interactions, the functioning of the Irish state and its ‘structural interdependence’ with multinational corporations.•Concludes that forces driving the Corrib conflict are simultaneously practical and ideological, local, national and global, extending beyond fractious dynamics of oil company and community interactions to encompass state institutions and Ireland’s place in a globalized world.