Rossport Update on 11th September 2008 & solidarity action in Brighton & upcoming action in London

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

After a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

Police pres­ence in the area is still very heavy this morn­ing although the gen­er­al atmos­phere (aside from at the com­pound gates) is slight­ly less tense. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton con­tin­ues her coura­geous hunger strike at the com­pound gates with round the clock sol­i­dar­i­ty from both locals and the camp.

It is still not clear how exact­ly the Soli­taire sus­tained the dam­age to its “stinger”
The stinger is DEFINITELY slight­ly dam­aged in one sec­tion how­ev­er this reporter can con­firm that it was not so dam­aged on Tues­day night when it arrived in Broad­haven Bay and that con­di­tions all through­out Tues­day night were absolute­ly calm both at land and on sea (remem­ber­ing that the Soli­taire can oper­ate in extreme­ly heavy seas unhin­dered due to its size).

The cause of the dam­age is a heav­i­ly spec­u­lat­ed upon mat­ter and I will not add to oth­er than the fact that AllSeas Ltd may be con­trac­tu­al­ly relieved from its oblig­a­tions under a damge clause in the con­tract.

More from yes­ter­day

Lock-on protest

The 5 peo­ple who locked on in atro­cious con­di­tions for 6 and a half hours from 5.30am to mid­day and blocked the road were all released with­out charge from Bel­mul­let Gar­da Sta­tion. 4 were held for 6 and a half hours and 1 was released after 4 hours. They report that they were treat­ed well in Gar­da cus­tody and that their needs were attend­ed to cor­rect­ly.

Up to 15 peo­ple were in atten­dance in sol­i­dar­i­ty at one point or anoth­er dur­ing the day, Gar­dai refused to allow any to stay inside the walls of the (pub­lic) station,including a solic­i­tor who is part of the protests. The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are all in good form today and proud of their actions and a good day for the cam­paign.

Pat O’Don­nell and son
Pat O’Don­nell and son as has been pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed were again arrest­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing to pre­vent them exer­cis­ing their legal enti­tle­ment to fish the waters of Broad­haven Bay. The pair were again arrest­ed under the “blank cheque” that is Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

This was the sec­ond time the pair were arrest­ed in 24 hours and released with­out charge,a spu­ri­ous use and fla­grant abuse of the law A pos­si­ble route to stem this behav­iour would be to seek an injunc­tion in the High Court to pre­vent the Gar­dai from using the law in this way,this how­ev­er is a very rare achieve­ment and is unlike­ly to be heard.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger­strike
Mau­ra con­tin­ued coura­geous­ly with her refusal to eat until the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. She has been giv­ing inter­views to media at inter­vals and has been chat­ting with sup­port­ers when the police are at a safe dis­tance. Gar­dai were,at 4am on Wednes­day morn­ing ‚revving their engines extreme­ly loud­ly right in front of Mau­ra’s car in order to dis­turb her sleep as much as pos­si­ble. Sup­port­ers have main­tained a con­stant pres­ence since the begin­ning of the action at 5pm Tues­day.
The hunger strike con­tin­ues

SOLITAIRE
We do not know whether or not the Soli­taire will return. We remain on high alert.

All sol­i­dar­i­ty in what­ev­er form and wher­ev­er is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.

—

10th Sep­tem­ber:

Five Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty campers have locked on to a bridge about 100m from the gates of the Shell com­pound in Glen­gad. The campers have been locked on since 4:30am — 5am. Gar­daí have refused to call the fire brigade, but have put a makeshift wee tent over the pro­tes­tors, and have cut a drain in the side of the road to allow lodg­ing rain on the road to drain off.

Two fish­ing boat skip­pers (plus crews) have been arrest­ed after Gar­daí board­ed the ves­sels as they approached the Soli­taire at anchor in Broad­haven Bay. Local on-the-scene reports say that Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan are among those arrest­ed. Gar­daí are alleg­ing pub­lic order offences (I expect to hear they’ll all be released with­out charges soon). Gar­daí are pre­vent­ing access now to the com­pound gates, where Mau­ra Har­ring­ton remains in her car and on hunger strike. Gar­daí are using the lock-on action as a pre­text for stop­ping pub­lic move­ment along that stretch of road.There is only one pro­tes­tor keep­ing watch on Mau­ra with a cam­era, but sup­port­ers can get close to both of them through the fields near­by. Inter­net con­nec­tion has returned to the Camp office, since about an hour before this post­ing.

Wel­come to Ire­land 2008 — Shel­l’s lit­tle police state!

Get up to Mayo now and con­front their vio­lent thiev­ing plans!

Pat O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan were AGAIN arrest­ed this morn­ing as they were attempt­ing to to exer­cise their legal right to be a sea.

The lock-on con­tin­ues to block the road from the Bel­mul­let side and the police have set up a road-block form the oth­er side of the com­pund (Pol­lath­omais side)

The 2–3 mile area in between is a pen where the police are pre­vent­ing peo­ple from walk­ing (although peo­ple are access­ing the road,and Maura,through the fields.

The Police are attempt­ing to begin the cut­ting of the pipes that are being used in the lock-on,this could take quite some time as they are extreme­ly thick.

The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are lying in pud­dles of water at this stage as the rain con­tin­ues to lash down in Erris.

A con­stant vig­il was kept at Mauras side all ngith with at least 5 peo­ple there at all times to ensure the cops did­nt try any­thing.

The Soli­taire is sta­tionery at its anchor loca­tion and there is no activ­i­ty on the com­pound at Glen­gad.

It must be under­lined that the arrests of Pat O’Don­nell and his com­rades are TOTALLY spu­ri­ous ‚a bull­shit appli­ca­tion of Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994 to keep the Chief and his fish­er­men col­leagues off the waters.

An injunc­tion is being sought to pre­vent fur­ther spu­ri­ous arrests.

——-

Two activists are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the roof of the Shell petrol garage on Pre­ston Road, Brighton in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing the Cor­rib gas pipeline devel­op­ment in Ross­port, Ire­land. This action is in response to an urgent call out made by the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp due to the pres­ence of the pipe lay­ing ves­sel, the Soli­taire, in Broad­haven bay and the immi­nent com­mence­ment of the build­ing of the pipeline.

The ship that is to build the pipeline is booked for the next two weeks. If Shell is able to fol­low its timetable to bring the pipeline into land, this will cre­ate mas­sive prob­lems for any resis­tance to the project in the future. Shell will be cre­at­ing ‘facts on the ground’ which will essen­tial­ly make it eas­i­er to push through a deci­sion on the land route, which local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have been fight­ing against. If work is pre­vent­ed at this time, it is unlike­ly that the ship will be able to return for at least two years as it has already been booked up.

Since 2005 there has been mas­sive resis­tance, includ­ing a strong cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, from the local com­mu­ni­ty, around Ire­land and beyond.

Update — 4:30pm

The two pro­test­ers came down some­time after 3–30 and were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed fol­low­ing an accu­sa­tion by the man­ag­er (a real­ly nasty piece of work) of crim­i­nal dam­age to the roof. Quite how she knew this with­out look­ing can be for the courts to decide (can’t wait). They are now in Holling­bury Cus­tody suite.

—–

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action
12 noon Mon­day 15th Sep
Allseas UK offices,7 Albe­mar­le St, West­min­ster Lon­don WIS 4HQ

Allseas owns the Soli­taire which tried to lay the gas pipe in Broad­haven Bay, Mayo last Tues­day. It has been dam­aged and may return to Hol­land. A local Woman is on hunger strike until it leaves Irish waters and we in the UK have been asked to demon­strate at the Allseas offices in sup­port of Mau­ra. The offices pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site can­not be con­firmed as the Allseas offices so we are going to their reg­is­tered address in West­min­ster. Please show sol­i­dar­i­ty to the peo­ple of Erris if you can.