Greenpeace fly over Waterford Airport investor Kelcy Warren’s estate with sign: 'Stop the Billionaire Takeoff'
Greenpeace International activists flew a ‘Stop the Billionaire Takeoff’ message near Energy Transfer executive chairman Kelcy Warren’s Castletown Cox estate in Kilkenny.
Greenpeace activists flew over the Kilkenny estate of US oil billionaire and Waterford Airport investor Kelcy Warren on the morning of Monday, May 18.
Paragliding over Mr Warren’s Castletown Cox estate, a Greenpeace activist flew a poster calling to “Stop the Billionaire Takeoff.”
Mr Warren has owned the estate since 2018. Planning permission for a private whiskey distillery was granted at the estate in January 2026.
Mr Warren became involved in a deal to assume control of Waterford Airport in the summer of 2025 and has pledged to invest €30 million in the runway’s extension and surrounding infrastructure.
The sod was officially turned on the airport's runway extension on the same day of the flyover.
Head of Civic Resistance at Greenpeace International, Sussanah Compton, said Mr Warren’s investment in the airport was “accelerating the already devastating impacts of climate change”.
Mr Warren has long clashed with Greenpeace. His midstream company Energy Transfer operates over 135,000 miles of pipelines with assets in 44 of the US’s 50 states.
In March 2025, he won a $660 million defamation lawsuit against Greenpeace in relation to protests over a gas pipeline in North Dakota. The fee was subsequently reduced to $345 million.
Mr Warren is a prolific supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Data from American political finance tracker Open Secrets shows Mr Warren donated $12.5 million to pro-Donald Trump Political Action Committees (PACs) during the 2024 election cycle, while Energy Transfer donated a further $19 million.
