rossport solidarity action at irish consulate in cardiff & Shell in London

Whilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

Cardiff Rossport solidarityWhilst the soli­taire is in for repairs, we’d thought we’d remind the gov­ern­ment that activists haven’t tak­en their eye off the ball. We also thought we would ded­i­cate this action to Mau­ra.

About 12 cli­mate activists from the West­side (thats south wales, bris­tol & bath) occu­pied the irish con­sulate in cardiff for an hour or two today (wednes­day 24th sept). About 5 got into the recep­tion and altered the dec­o­ra­tions, and demand­ed to see the con­sul, who was­n’t at home (to us any­way). Mean­while, out­side a ban­ner pre­vi­ous­ly used on the welsh pipeline cam­paign was held on the steps of the con­sulate, ignor­ing the ridicu­lous­ly irate secu­ri­ty chief :“calm down mate, we are only hold­ing a ban­ner”. Most staff from the build­ing hap­pi­ly took leaflets.

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Ban­ner Dropped in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ross­port & Mau­ra

On Wednes­day evening a women’s col­lec­tive climbed 2 lamp­posts direct­ly out­side of Shell’s head­quar­ters in Lon­don. After unfurl­ing the ban­ner the police came in large num­bers and harassed the sup­port­ers on the ground. A live­ly protest ensued for about 20 min­utes whilst the climbers stayed up and peo­ple on the ground chant­ed. Infor­ma­tion was giv­en to the folks walk­ing near the area about Ross­port & Shell’s cam­paign of destruc­tion in Coun­ty Mayo.

The police even­tu­al­ly man­aged to cut the ban­ner down. The climbers were arrest­ed and lat­er released with­out charge.

We did this action to show sup­port for the ongo­ing strug­gle of res­i­dents and sup­port­ers in Mayo to send Shell to Hell (or to Sea, depend­ing on when and who). Since late 2000 there has been an on-going attempt by mul­ti-nation­als and the Irish state to destroy a beau­ti­ful remote coastal area in the coun­ty Mayo with a tox­ic refin­ery and high pres­sure pro­duc­tion gas pipeline. The local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers have lead an inspir­ing and sus­tained cam­paign against this con­struc­tion. In the last few weeks there has been a wave of action to stop the pipe-lay­ing ship, the soli­taire, from build­ing. Includ­ed in this was the inspir­ing hunger strike of local school teacher Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

At the end of last week the soli­taire left the bay for ‘essen­tial repairs.’ Mau­ra came off hunger strike and the cam­paign is work­ing on ensur­ing that it does not come back. For more infor­ma­tion see:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/409002.html
http://struggle.ws/rsc/