11.01.2007

Reports from Mon­day , Tues­day and Thurs­day at pro­posed Shell refin­ery site, of Shell to Sea pro­test­ers and pho­tos of same.

Back to work for Shell to Sea

Mon­day the 8th saw a return to work for Shell and its con­trac­tors at the pro­posed Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal site. Shell to Sea pro­test­ers turned out in force to wel­come them back, as the Gar­dai wel­comed us back. A group of about 70 locals assem­bled as they have every work­ing day predawn at 7 am to protest against the ter­mi­nal and shell. The Gar­dai turned out in force(no pun intend­ed). There was a chang­ing of the Gar­dai, the grunts at least but most of the senior offi­cers were the same tired, aggres­sive, drink smelling clowns that we have been deal­ing with, and assault­ed by, for months.

Peo­ple attempt­ed to block trucks with new enthu­si­asm by stand­ing in front of them. This was soon fol­lowed by the usu­al assaults tak­ing place with Gar­dai fling­ing peo­ple in the drains and ditch­es, shov­ing peo­ple to the ground etc.

Appar­ent­ly the Gar­dai are unfa­mil­iar with the process of arrest­ing some­one if they break the law, but then per­haps there is no law being bro­ken? Supt Joe Gan­non explained in the Gar­da Review that the polit­i­cal deci­sion has been tak­en to not arrest pro­test­ers, so as not to cre­ate “martyrsâ€?. This stand­ing deci­sion has result­ed in Gar­dai using oth­er means to dom­i­nate the sit­u­a­tion, name­ly assault­ing and intim­i­dat­ing peo­ple.

After iso­lat­ing one indi­vid­ual, Gar­da GW 65 Sean Coller­an took his gui­tar and case, took out the gui­tar and threat­ened to break it before leav­ing it on the wet road, who said school yard bul­lies grow up?
Approx­i­mate­ly 40 Gar­dai were deployed on the ground with a sim­i­lar num­ber retained on a bus on stand by.
Mon­day evening Shell to Sea attend­ed the month­ly Mayo Co. Co. meet­ing in Castle­bar to protest against Mayo Co. Co. col­lu­sion with Shell in rela­tion to the EIS, the plan­ning per­mis­sion and the cold vent­ing. About 30 pro­test­ers attend­ed this, hav­ing watched and lis­tened to over 2 1/2 hours of Coun­cil­lors’ moan­ing about the hedge trim­ming oper­a­tion s and oth­er road relat­ed issues, the month­ly meet­ing final­ly com­menced prop­er­ly, and pro­test­ers had to briefly inter­rupt the meet­ing to demand a legit­i­mate response to ongo­ing issues which the Co. Co. has tried to brush under the car­pet. On receiv­ing assur­ances that these issues would be replied to all pro­test­ers exit­ed the meet­ing.

Tues­day 9th

The morn­ing of Tues­day 9th saw sim­i­lar scenes, with an attempt by Mr.Corduff to edu­cate the Gar­dai as to what their actions were facil­i­tat­ing, name­ly prof­its of big busi­ness and the local pop­u­la­tions death, be it from a sud­den explo­sion or slow­ly from var­i­ous forms of pol­lu­tion to the whole area, land, water and air. Below are images from today, apolo­gies for lack of clar­i­ty, its still dark in the morn­ing and the Gar­dai jack­ets reflect the flash and obscure the pho­tos. My cam­era also received a punch from Sgt. Robin­son, pos­si­bly as “revengeâ€? because some­one dared to step out over the white line and block a truck for approx 5 sec­onds before being rug­by tack­led by him­self and thrown at the ditch.

For any­one who read the Gar­da review mag­a­zine which had a spe­cial on the issue, you may remem­ber how the Gar­dai are feel­ing hard done by because they do not receive the Irish speak­ing bonus when sta­tioned in Bel­mul­let, yet appar­ent­ly speak Irish every­day at the ser­vice hatch in the sta­tion. One might then think that some mem­ber of the force can speak Irish, flu­ent­ly or oth­er­wise but I have yet to see a Gar­da who can even take a name or address in Irish let alone speak Irish, despite being required to do so when addressed in Irish as many peo­ple do so when demon­strat­ing each day at Bal­linaboy.

Thurs­day 11th Jan­u­ary 2007.
Day 100 of a com­mu­ni­ty under siege

A storm con­tin­ued to rage from the night before as demon­stra­tors gath­ered at 7am. As the time came to move at 7.30 the deci­sion was tak­en to dri­ve up the road to the ter­mi­nal in front of the Shell con­voy as opposed to the nor­mal walk. Every­one hopped into their vehi­cles and drove slow­ly up the road, the Gar­dai being caught off guard didn’t know how to respond or deal with the sit­u­a­tion effec­tive­ly. Even­tu­al­ly they man­aged to stop most of the pro­test­er con­voy and waved on the Shell traf­fic. Demon­stra­tors parked at HQ out­side the pro­posed Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal and gath­ered at the entrance gates.
Attempt­ing to appeal to the morals and con­science of the Gar­dai proved futile as they kept peo­ple back to escort the Shell stone trucks on site.

Then a grin­ning Super­in­ten­dent Joe Gan­non, who has until recent­ly played a more low key role strut­ted up behind the Gar­da line as he draft­ed up more and more Gar­dai until they had approx 40–50 there and then gave the order to dri­ve the pro­test­ers back, despite the fact that the trucks where get­ting in. With out warn­ing the Gar­dai as a whole charged for­ward and pro­ceed­ed to shove, push or wal­lop all in front of them ‚dri­ving all before them. Mary Cor­duff, Ross­port 5 Willie Corduff’s wife, was knocked to the ground and then dragged by the Gar­dai as they con­tin­ued to charge for­ward. They kept shov­ing peo­ple back until the entire area in front of Shells site was clear and every­one was removed form the road also. Sgt But­ler MY28 was clear­ly delight­ed at his chance to once again bul­ly and harass peo­ple, grin­ning, laugh­ing and taunt­ing after the charge.
Amaz­ing­ly the largest sin­gle Gar­da oper­a­tion in the coun­try, exe­cut­ed every day one way or the oth­er, failed to make any news.