Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info