Day of Chaos against Shell at Aghoos Com­pound
23.08.2011
A mass tres­pass stops work, one per­son on top of a dig­ger for 4 hours

Today 25 peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp sus­tained a bar­rage of actions against the site Shell is prepar­ing for its tun­nel bor­ing machine. Despite 80 secu­ri­ty and three vans of gar­daí they were unable to keeps the pro­test­ers out. In the chaos that ensued one per­son got through the lines to d‑lock them­selves to one of the dig­gers and remained up there stop­ping work for 4 hours. Else­where oth­er dig­gers had to stop work­ing as pro­tes­tors approached.

Con Cough­lan, one of those who one of those who breached secu­ri­ty said, “It was an incred­i­ble day. We pushed and pushed. No mat­ter how many times they dragged us out we kept going back. Peo­ple were com­ing from the back, oth­ers were launch­ing them­selves over the fences at the front.”

The day start­ed at 2pm with three sep­a­rate groups com­ing from dif­fer­ent direc­tions. From ear­ly on they began being car­ried out of the com­pound by pri­vate secu­ri­ty, but this was no deter­rent with peo­ple sim­ply dust­ing them­selves off and going back around. Despite their much greater num­bers, secu­ri­ty strug­gled to keep up with the con­stant pres­sure. Numer­ous weak­ness­es in the site perime­ter were found and used to keep peo­ple com­ing in.

It was in a moment of chaos that one per­son found the oppor­tu­ni­ty to slip under a fence and made the dash for the near­est dig­ger. Secu­ri­ty, caught on the hop, despite hold­ing off a num­ber of oth­er pro­test­ers, failed to stop her get­ting on top and using a d‑lock she had brought with her to attach her neck to the roof sec­tion. She then set­tled down for a nap while the rest got on with the day. She was there for four hours and was not arrest­ed.

Most of the work going on was to build the pal­isade fenc­ing for the inner com­pound of the site. This is being sup­plied and installed by Shevlins Engi­neer­ing.

Grainne Bradaigh , anoth­er of those who found a way in said, “We had fun. It was real­ly very empow­er­ing. You could see how effec­tive we were being from the way the work­ers were so frus­trat­ed. It was the first time I’ve done some­thing like this, but I’m def­i­nite­ly up for it again. The gar­daí were out­side act­ing as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for the trac­tors com­ing in, but there was noth­ing they could to do to stop us inside Shel­l’s com­pound.”

Actions have been tak­ing place against Shell in co. Mayo all sum­mer, oppos­ing the con­struc­tion of a pipeline that will pump high pres­sure gas through the beau­ti­ful Broad­haven Bay. It is part of a broad­er cam­paign by locals and those who sup­port their efforts, that has been going on for ten years. Since May a camp has been estab­lished above the impor­tant site at Augh­oose. It is open to all – if you are inter­est­ed in com­ing along, please vis­it the web­site at www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

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Dou­ble Bar­rel Con­crete Lock-on Stops Shell

Mon­day 22nd August at 6am, two peo­ple locked their arms into con­crete bar­rels in the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and the tun­nel­ing com­pound in Augh­oose. The lock-on last­ed for 7 hours, stop­ping all deliv­er­ies to the com­pound dur­ing that time.

Cur­rent­ly Shell are try­ing to set up a com­pound in Augh­oose, 3km from the refin­ery at Bal­linaboy. They are bring­ing in fenc­ing, bog­mats, steel gird­ers and oth­er equip­ment in order to secure the com­pound. Once it is secure Shell intends to remove 75,000 tonnes of peat from the bog. This bog is an impor­tant wet­land habi­tat, home to frogs and newts and loads of diverse flo­ra and fau­na. After remov­ing the peat they plan on bring­ing in the tun­nel bor­ing machine and begin the tun­nel under the estu­ary for the onshore pipeline.

The con­crete lock-ons were set up at 6am on Mon­day. As Shell nor­mal­ly begins deliv­er­ies to the com­pound from 7am, this 7 hour lock-on effec­tive­ly stopped all deliv­er­ies for 6 hours.

The Gar­da cut­ting team which spe­cialis­es in cut­ting pro­test­ers out of lock-ons and get­ting peo­ple down from high places, did not arrive until 9am. The first per­son was cut out of the first con­crete bar­rel just before 11am. With­in 15 min­utes they began cut­ting the sec­ond con­crete bar­rel to remove the sec­ond per­son. The sec­ond per­son was cut out just before 1pm, at which point the guards called Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil to clean up the mess of the cut up lock-on.

Local res­i­dents and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are doing con­tin­u­ous actions against Shell. If you’ve been mean­ing to come but just haven’t got­ten around to it yet, come for a vis­it. There is plen­ty to do here includ­ing gar­den­ing, cook­ing, site main­te­nance, talk­ing to locals or writ­ing indy­media arti­cles, as well as sit­ting in a lock-on if you like that kin­da thing. The only way to real­ly under­stand what is hap­pen­ing here is to come and see for your­self. The camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose over­look­ing the Shell com­pound, between Pul­lath­omas and Bal­linaboy.

To con­tact the camp, ring 085 114 1170 or email rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com
http://shelltosea.com

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Gar­daí and Shell Secu­ri­ty Work Hand in Hand Block­ing Pub­lic Roads

An Gar­da Siochana and Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices (IRMS) polic­ing the roads togeth­er

Mon­day 15th August at 9am a group of 12 peo­ple went down to Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose to stop work. Even­tu­al­ly Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty (IRMS) and the Gar­daí began work­ing togeth­er to police the roads and pro­tect deliv­er­ies of equip­ment to the com­pound.

After about an hour of pro­test­ers main­tain­ing a pres­ence on the road and slow­ing the work of the dig­gers, Gar­daí and IRMS formed a line con­tain­ing pro­test­ers on the oppo­site side of the road from Shel­l’s com­pound. The pri­vate secu­ri­ty have absolute­ly no juris­dic­tion on a pub­lic road, so they have no right to be con­tain­ing and han­dling peo­ple.

At one point an IRMS man­ag­er gave orders to the Gar­daí, telling them to back off and allow traf­fic to pass. Sev­er­al cars were held up for at least 15 min­utes while Shell deliv­ered a new dig­ger to the com­pound. In Shel­l’s traf­fic man­age­ment plan it states that the pub­lic road will remain open at all times, how­ev­er in the past few weeks we have seen IRMS clos­ing the pub­lic road for up to 30 min­utes at a time.

On Tues­day 16th August a group of peo­ple went down to the com­pound again to stop the work, this time enter­ing the com­pound from around the side. Some peo­ple were car­ried or escort­ed by IRMS up to the pub­lic road, no arrests were made.

The protests are con­tin­u­ous, and peo­ple are need­ed to sus­tain actions. If you are think­ing of vis­it­ing the camp, any time is a good time. The camp is locat­ed in a field oppo­site the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose, between Bal­linaboy and Pul­lath­omas.

To con­tact the camp, ring 085 114 1170 or email rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

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Some Expert Lor­ry Climb­ing Stops Shell

Between a mass tres­pass in the morn­ing, some­one block­ing the road for 2 and ½ hours by climb­ing on top of a lor­ry, and a protest out­side Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery, Thurs­day 11th August was a day full of block­ing Shell.

Thurs­day 11th August at 10:30am about 20 peo­ple entered the com­pound in Augh­oose which Shell is expand­ing in order to build the tun­nel for the onshore pipeline. The dig­gers which are lay­ing bog­mats and erect­ing fenc­ing retreat­ed into the cen­tre of the com­pound which is heav­i­ly guard­ed by IRMS, Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty force. Work was slowed for an hour and a half while peo­ple were on the site.

At 11:30am some­one man­aged to climb on top of a lor­ry which was about to deliv­er fenc­ing and gird­ers to the com­pound. The halt­ed lor­ry blocked the road so they were not able to bring any­thing else into the com­pound. Shell esti­mat­ed they would be mak­ing 75 deliv­er­ies per day, today they man­aged about 10.

Just before 2pm the Gar­da pub­lic order unit showed up with their new toy, a cher­ryp­ick­er. Sergeant But­ler was dri­ving it, and three pub­lic order Gar­daí went up in the cage and pulled the per­son off of the steel gird­er he was sat on.

Once the road was cleared a few peo­ple went back down onto the com­pound and once again the dig­gers retreat­ed and stopped work­ing for about an hour.

To fin­ish up the day, a group of peo­ple cycled to Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery for 6pm and stopped the last few trac­tors of the day from com­ing out, sim­ply by sit­ting out­side the gates and mak­ing tea. Then on the way home the cyclists delayed the IRMS shift change for almost an hour, until the Gar­daí arrived and the cyclists went home for din­ner.

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Cor­rib Gas protest at Augh­oose com­pound

At approx 6.40 am this morn­ing, Wednes­day 9th August, mem­bers of Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Shel­l’s pipe lay­ing com­pound at Augh­oose. Shell is attempt­ing to extend its exist­ing com­pound to facil­i­tate the arrival of its tun­nel bor­ing machine. A total of about 70 I‑RMS secu­ri­ty guards removed 10+ pro­test­ers from the com­pound with force. Gar­dai were stand­ing by to assist the I‑RMS, how­ev­er, they were faced with a dif­fi­cult legal predica­ment: which law could they use to restrain or arrest a pro­test­er? With­out the free reign of “pub­lic order” leg­is­la­tion, the Gar­dai could only reproach pro­test­ers if the pri­vate land own­er, Shell, request­ed it.

One pro­test­er was arrest­ed for refus­ing to give a name and address. Gar­dai are enti­tled to request a name and address only if the per­son in ques­tion is, with­in rea­son, sus­pect­ed of break­ing a law. In short, a gar­da must tell a per­son why he/she is request­ing a name and address. The gar­dai were hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty locat­ing such a rea­son. It is unclear whether or not Shell asked the Gar­dai to inter­vene. With the neg­a­tive pub­lic rela­tions image Shell has acquired for itself in Ire­land due to the Cor­rib project, it is thought that Shell are reluc­tant take any court pro­ceed­ings against pro­test­ers.

The IRMS was polic­ing the entire road out­side the Augh­oose com­pound at var­i­ous points. This writer has per­son­al­ly seen I‑RMS secu­ri­ty guards unlaw­ful­ly act in a man­ner only war­rant­ed to police offi­cers of the state. Despite assur­ances by Super­in­ten­dent Pat Diskin who in an arti­cle writ­ten by Irish Times reporter, Lor­na Sig­gins, denied claims by Shell to Sea that the pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, I‑RMS, was clos­ing roads at Augh­oose. This morn­ing the I‑RMS did block the road unlaw­ful­ly. Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp mem­bers, as well as mem­bers of the Gar­dai, wit­nessed these actions. Gar­dai are legal­ly oblig­at­ed to main­tain the pub­lic order on all pub­lic high­ways at all times when­ev­er pos­si­ble. This morn­ing I‑RMS were exempt from the laws of the state.

Two pro­test­ers were assault­ed by I‑RMS secu­ri­ty guards, with one of the pro­test­ers being punched in the face. Com­plaints have been made to the Gar­dai and state­ments have been giv­en on the mat­ter. Mean­while, Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp mem­bers stopped work this after­noon at Shrah­more peat depo­si­tion site from 4pm until 7pm. This is the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day that work in Shrah­more has been halt­ed by pro­test­ers.

If you want to vis­it the camp there is plen­ty for every­one; join in the protests, or help in the gar­den, or help with site main­te­nance. The camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bal­linaboy and Pul­lath­omas. Ring the camp at 0851141170 or email at rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

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Shel­l’s work at peat depot halt­ed

Work was halt­ed at Bord na Mon­a’s Shrah­more peat depo­si­tion site on Mon­day August 8th by pro­test­ers from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. From 11am up until 6pm four pro­test­ers pre­vent­ed Bar­ret­t’s and Lennon’s quar­ry trucks from enter­ing the site with road build­ing grav­el. Inside the com­pound, two of the pro­test­ers climbed up onto a dig­ger in order to stop it pro­ceed­ing with the road con­struc­tion on the site.

Shell oil com­pa­ny is plan­ning to dig up 125,000 tonnes of peat from Shruwad­da­con estu­ary and lay down a high pres­sure raw gas pipeline. The local com­mu­ni­ty have not con­sent­ed to Shel­l’s oper­a­tions. The peat which Shell plans to dig up is sched­uled to be dumped at Shrah­more. How­ev­er, with­out the pres­ence of ade­quate road net­works with­in Shrah­more, the heavy peat dump­ing machin­ery can­not oper­ate. By halt­ing road build­ing works at Shrah­more from pro­ceed­ing, pro­test­ers are chal­leng­ing the social, envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nom­ic valid­i­ty of Shel­l’s activ­i­ties.

Mean­while, it has also been announced today that Shell, Sta­toil & Ver­mil­ion have now extend­ed their expect­ed date for when Cor­rib Gas will flow to 2014. Every year it seems that they push their expect­ed fin­ish date out fur­ther and fur­ther. Orig­i­nal­ly the fin­ish date was due to be 2003, so now the project would be 11 years delayed by Shel­l’s cur­rent guess: http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/corrib-pipeline‑w.…html

3rd August 2011
This week saw Shell begin the next stage of their gas project by attempt­ing to extend and secure their com­pound in Augh­oose in prepa­ra­tion to lay the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline. This entailed trac­tors deliv­er­ing fenc­ing, machin­ery and oth­er things for them to car­ry out the work. If all had gone to plan would have had the com­pound near com­ple­tion now. How­ev­er, there was five days of 12 hour block­ades which has slowed them down tremen­dous­ly. Here’s a quick round up of the events of last week…

The week start­ed Mon­day 25th July at 7am with a tri­pod which last­ed over five hours. The pro­test­er was removed using scaf­fold­ing. The after­noon was spent caus­ing chaos on bikes and on foot with the cops even­tu­al­ly need­ing to seize bikes in order to stop the pro­test­ers. At most ten trac­tors made the jour­ney to the com­pound, all hav­ing been delayed. Shell made a state­ment on the radio that their work had been “severe­ly imped­ed”. Not bad for the first day.

At 7am on Tues­day there was an arm tube lock-on which last­ed well over an hour. No arrests were made. Only 2 trac­tors made it into the com­pound before mid­day. The rest of the day was spent hid­ing in ditch­es and jump­ing out in front of and onto trac­tors with one per­son spend­ing over an hour and a half on top of a trac­tor before being forcibly removed and arrest­ed. Shell had still had less than 20 deliv­er­ies to the com­pound so far in the week.

Wednes­day saw an 8 hour lock-on from 7am. Two indi­vid­u­als were arrest­ed under pub­lic order charges. The Gar­dai (police) had stepped up their ‘pro­tec­tion’ of the trac­tors and were pro­vid­ing a tight con­voy for each trac­tor. At some points there was two pad­dy wag­ons, two squad cars, a cut­ting team, an IRMS jeep and detec­tive Brett Nolan’s under­cov­er vehi­cle escort­ing each trac­tor. The Gar­dai were being ordered to get out of their vehi­cles and run along­side the trac­tor in order to try and stop the peo­ple hop­ping aboard. Despite this peo­ple were able to mount most trac­tors that went by and less than ten trac­tors made their deliv­er­ies by 7pm.

On Thurs­day the first trac­tor was stopped by some­one climb­ing onto the cab. Pleas­ing­ly this last­ed for two and a half hours, with the indi­vid­ual man­ag­ing to jump the fence and get away with­out being arrest­ed. With some fine com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion, as the next trac­tor made its jour­ney from the refin­ery to the new com­pound a group cre­at­ed a decoy by appear­ing to attempt to get on the trac­tor. How­ev­er unbe­known to the cops this was mere­ly a dis­trac­tion as the tri­pod was being set up just a cou­ple of hun­dred metres up the road. After the sounds of a bat­tle cry in the dis­tance the group of pro­test­ers caus­ing chaos respond­ed and ran up the road with the Gar­dai look­ing some­what baf­fled. As the tri­pod was estab­lished a call went out to anoth­er group who were sit­u­at­ed over in Cross­moli­na (a town 45 min­utes from the camp)where the scaf­fold­ing firm are based. They block­ad­ed the scaf­fold­ing firms gates for a cou­ple of hours. No arrests were made. The tri­pod was even­tu­al­ly dis­man­tled at around 3pm so peo­ple gath­ered at the refin­ery gates. Num­bers grew and morale was high. When the next trac­tor was brought out chaos ensued. One pro­test­er climbed on the cab and after 20 min­utes was forcibly removed and arrest­ed. This was fol­lowed by anoth­er pro­test­er climb­ing under­neath the same trac­tor. They were removed after about 15 min­utes but man­aged to avoid arrest. This was fol­lowed by a rolling block­ade on the road with peo­ple sit­ting down, being removed then sit­ting straight back down. After about 40 min­utes the trac­tor reversed back into the refin­ery. The ela­tion among folk was amaz­ing. The cops look­ing defeat­ed got in their vehi­cles and left. There was real cel­e­bra­tion with a feel­ing that this had been one of the strongest days of the cam­paign. It was 5.15pm and work was­n’t due to fin­ish until 7pm. A group stayed at the refin­ery to ensure noth­ing came out…it did­n’t. Two trucks made deliv­er­ies on Thurs­day.

Fri­day was the mass day of action. Due to this Shell had already can­celled work for the day. Pro­test­ers made their way down to the com­pound at around 9.30. Some pro­test­ers made it into the com­pound whilst oth­ers tore down fences. There was a huge Gar­dai pres­ence and approx­i­mate­ly 80 IRMS (Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty). A sec­ond attempt was made lat­er in the day to pull down more fences which end­ed in sev­er­al peo­ple being hurt and requir­ing hos­pi­tal treat­ment. Despite this peo­ple remained at the com­pound , many spend­ing the after­noon play­ing music and relax­ing on the road. Despite the injuries it was felt it was a great day and that by hav­ing the day of action our work was already done as Shell did­n’t work.

Shel­l’s first week of work did not go to plan. After study­ing their traf­fic man­age­ment plan , which out­lines their pre­dict­ed truck move­ments over the 26 month peri­od that they intend to com­plete the project, it appears that at this stage their aim was to be mak­ing 159 truck move­ments per day! Last week in total they had approx­i­mate­ly 40.

There feels like a real buzz in the cam­paign at the moment! The Gar­daí are appear­ing stretched and are using up a lot of their resources. They are hav­ing to change their tac­tics dai­ly and despite their efforts and ludi­crous pro­tec­tion of Shel­l’s vehi­cles pro­test­ers are still man­ag­ing to cause huge dis­rup­tion.

If peo­ple can come up,now real­ly feels like the time! To main­tain this strong resis­tance we need peo­ple and ideas. There is so much to do on camp at the moment. Not only is there protests but camp life is always busy and full of things to do.

For more infor­ma­tion call us on 0851141170 and email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org