Shell to Sea visit Shell’s boats & picket begins again in Rossport & UK actions call-out

29.8.2008
Yes­ter­day, with work in Broad­haven Bay still delayed, a small Shell to Sea marine team paid a vis­it to the cur­rent Shell water nerve-cen­tre based at Bal­ly­glass pier. Cur­rent­ly moored off Bal­ly­glass is a barge con­tain­ing winch­ing cable, the recent­ly returned Vlaan­deren VII which ran aground at Glen­gad two weeks ago and also the Zenne which is the back­hoe dredger that last Fri­day dropped tonnes of debris with­in feet of pro­tes­tors. Also around the area were a num­ber of oth­er small­er Shell boats.

The Shell to Sea pad­dlers were made up of mem­bers of the Sham­rock squadron (the J. Con­nol­ly, J. Larkin, M. Collins) & Emer­ald squadron (the Grainne) along with 2 mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al flotil­la (the Guy Fawkes of York­shire squadron and the Robin Hood of Not­ting­ham squadron).

The pad­dlers had made their way about the 1km out to the boats before the Shell safe­ty and secu­ri­ty boats react­ed.
After about an hour pad­dling around the area the Shell to Sea team head­ed into Bal­ly­glass Pier to greet the Gar­da boat which was just launch­ing from the RNLI slip­way. The gar­daí polite­ly refused the request of a race from the J. Con­nol­ly (Sham­rock squadron) after which the team then made their way to the pub­lic slip­way where they were met by shore sup­port.

Mean­while marine train­ing con­tin­ued for the activists prepar­ing for the Soli­taire and asso­ci­at­ed boats.

——–

Shell to Sea pro­test­ers stepped up their cam­paign against Shell’s off­shore pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tions by mount­ing a pick­et at the Shell com­pound, Glen­gad, Erris Co Mayo, Ire­land.

A dai­ly pick­et was main­tained at the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site from the sum­mer of 2005 till recent­ly. This is the first time since 2005 that a pick­et has been staged at the Shell ‘Secu­ri­ty Zone’ in Glen­gad. The pick­et start­ed at 7am and last­ed till 9am, dur­ing which time Shell secu­ri­ty, who were ready to leave after their overnight shift, remained on site for the dura­tion. Shell work­ers arriv­ing for work at the site remained out­side. The pick­et was stood down vol­un­tar­i­ly at 9am and the work­ers left and entered the com­pound con­se­quent­ly.

The orig­i­nal Bel­lan­aboy pick­et was effec­tive­ly bro­ken by the unlaw­ful and vio­lent behav­iour of An Gar­da Síochá­na which began on Octo­ber 3rd, 2006 and con­tin­ued through 2007. The Bel­lan­aboy pick­et dimin­ished sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing that whole peri­od and into 2008, under­stand­ably, because of a sus­tained assault by the State against its own cit­i­zens, result­ing in much phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal injury to the com­mu­ni­ty and its sup­port­ers.

Today’s pick­et saw the return of many on the receiv­ing end of that attack and it has to be said that the women of Erris, many of whom have been bru­talised by An Gar­da Síochá­na in the past, were the first to return to the camp and the refreshed pick­et.

Mean­while, a Shell to Sea marine team took to the water from Inver pier to pay a vis­it to some Shell & Gar­da boats moored off Bal­ly­glass pier on the oppo­site side of that stretch of water. Apolo­gies, no pics in this report yet of that lit­tle expe­di­tion. Maybe lat­er.

No sign of the Soli­taire yet, prob­a­bly due to the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

1) Bad weath­er.

2) The Chief Pat O’Donnell’s suc­cess­ful defence of his pots from Shell thieves aboard the High­land Nav­i­ga­tor. Pat’s gear remains in the path of the Soli­taire and per­haps only the rul­ing of a judge can resolve that dis­pute, unless the Soli­taire steams through regard­less.

3) Stiff and grow­ing resis­tance.

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Urgent Call For Actions Against Shell & Allseas

NOW IS THE TIME- Sup­port Shell to Sea, Ire­land. ANY DAY NOW the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world, the Soli­taire, is due to arrive. The ship is owned by ALLSEAS. Shell are attempt­ing to ille­gal­ly con­struct the off­shore sec­tion of the high pres­sure raw gas pipeline. Our com­mu­ni­ty are deter­mined to resist Shell here in Mayo, Ireland…but we need your help!

Actions are ongo­ing and will inten­si­fy with the arrival of the Soli­taire. There is a role for every­one, regard­less of age, expe­ri­ence, avail­abil­i­ty and skill. The areas you can help with are end­less and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of camp sup­port, water based skills, legal, cook­ing, med­ical, media and of course direct action.

The atmos­phere is resur­gent in the area, with a fresh burst of con­fi­dence evi­dent among both locals, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al Shell to Sea activists. This is a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­vig­o­rate the fight against this project in a mean­ing­ful and effec­tive way.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!
Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

SMASH SHELL
rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo,
http://www.shelltosea.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp110mb.com