Ireland’s Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 has passed into law, providing the mechanism to agree, review, and enforce Ireland’s climate plans, and through which the country is now legally committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This is a significant step forward in the reinforcement of Ireland’s energy commitments and indicates that developing alternative forms of clean energy will be central to government policy in the coming years. Ireland has one of the largest wave energy resources per capita on the planet and has significant, globally recognised, technical expertise in both fundamental research and wave energy device prototype development and testing. With policy support and investment, particularly through the mid-technology readiness levels, Ireland could produce 12.5GW of electricity from wave energy, more than twice the country’s peak demand, with the potential to market this technology globally. Within this context, a strategic question that may be posed is whether Ireland should seek to develop indigenous wave energy technology for potential export, or instead wait for technological maturity and deploy imported solutions. While the broader economic strategy question lies beyond the scope of this thesis, it provides important motivation for examining the conditions under which wave energy technology development could be supported domestically. Accordingly, this thesis focuses on the policy, institutional, and innovation external factors that influence the progression of wave energy technologies towards commercial viability in Ireland. Denmark’s successful development of wind energy technology is used as a comparative policy benchmark, with Denmark having a similar demographic profile to Ireland including GDP, population, geographical size, and agricultural heritage; and where wind technology is now mature with continuing technology development and global exploitation, with wind production per capita exceeding that of any other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country. The analysis concentrates specifically on policy frameworks and enabling mechanisms, rather than on wider political, economic, or cultural factors. The thesis explores external factors that are fundamental to the successful development of the burgeoning wave energy technology industry, looking in detail at policies and recent policy changes, funding availability, intellectual property protection, infrastructure availability, and social acceptance of wave energy technology. Having thoroughly examined these factors that are central to the success of a viable wave energy industry, this thesis offers conclusions that can inform practical and pragmatic policy interventions to support a robust, commercially sustainable indigenous wave energy industry.