Shell compound breached, equipment destroyed in 2nd day of action

23 Hune 2013. The sec­ond day of the week of action saw an unex­pect­ed suc­cess when Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers man­aged to breach Shells for­ti­fied com­pound and force secu­ri­ty to retreat to the inner com­pound.

23 Hune 2013. The sec­ond day of the week of action saw an unex­pect­ed suc­cess when Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers man­aged to breach Shells for­ti­fied com­pound and force secu­ri­ty to retreat to the inner com­pound.  While this hap­pened much of the equip­ment, in par­tic­u­lar the spy cam­eras, in  the out­er com­pound was dam­aged or destroyed

 
The day start­ed with Don­al Kel­ly per­form­ing his one per­son play about the strug­gle against Shell at the gates of the com­pound.  Around 70 peo­ple gath­ered to watch the per­for­mance, sit­ting on the ground in front of the gates.  After the play most peo­ple used the pub­lic right of way that now runs between two of the Shell com­pounds to access the for­shore, the site of yes­ter­days action against the Shell bog road and sand bag dam.
 
Cam­paign­ers tore up much of the remain­ing bog road and while this was hap­pen­ing a weak­ness was found in the fence result­ing in a sig­nif­i­cant sec­tion of this being torn down.  A few peo­ple crossed into the com­pound were IRMS, Shel­l’s secu­ri­ty attempt­ed to push and intim­i­date them out.  As more cam­paign­ers came into the com­pound to sup­port them the tables turned and sud­den­ly IRMS were in full retreat, dri­ven back to and through the gate into the upper com­pound.  After an attempt to get through the gates of this com­pound as well cam­paign­ers decid­ed to return to the strand for the planned pic­nic.
 
As they passed back through the low­er com­pound they observed that the spy cam­eras on its walls now all appeared to be bro­ken and that the pumps and gen­er­a­tors along with oth­er equip­ment had stopped work­ing.  A few Gar­da joined IRMS in video record­ing cam­paign­ers but no arrests were made and after the pic­nic every­one returned to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp to dis­cuss the days events.
 
The week of action con­tin­ues all through the week and over next week­end.  Every­one who want to act against Shell is wel­come, their is space to camp and com­mu­nal meals through the day.  The strug­gle against Shell has entered its 13th year, push­ing the project 2.4 bil­lion over the orig­i­nal planned costs of 600 mil­lion.  The actions of the last two days will have added to these costs and fur­ther delay the project.