Rossport round-up

Shell Con­trac­tor Quar­ry Shut Down For Day
Barret’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor Erris shut down by pro­test­ers

On Wednes­day 31st August at 8am 15 peo­ple entered Barrett’s quar­ry, just out­side Ban­gor Erris in Co. Mayo and stopped work for the whole day, leav­ing at 5:30pm. Barrett’s is a sub­con­trac­tor on the Cor­rib Gas Project, cur­rent­ly bring­ing truck­loads of grav­el and hard­core to Shell’s site in Augh­oose.

Enter­ing the quar­ry site Wednes­day morn­ing was easy, as there were only a cou­ple secu­ri­ty guards and there is no fenc­ing around the site aside from the front gate. Once peo­ple were on site work was halt­ed pret­ty quick­ly as peo­ple climbed up onto dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery.

No attempt to remove the pro­test­ers was made, and the day was pret­ty calm. Folks even got up to play­ing were­wolves and cha­rades while on the machin­ery in order to pass the time.

At 5:30 after all the work­ers had gone home and there was no chance of them resum­ing their deliv­er­ies to the Shell site, all the pro­test­ers left through the front gate.

Pro­test­ers have been tar­get­ing Barrett’s lor­ries on the pub­lic road over the last few weeks as they were try­ing to make their stone deliv­er­ies to the Shell com­pound, by stop­ping them and climb­ing on top of them. This occu­pa­tion of the quar­ry itself is a mes­sage to all con­trac­tors work­ing for Shell on this project.

Near­by Lennon’s Quar­ry also sup­ply mate­r­i­al to the site and have also had many of their vehi­cles occu­pied in recent weeks. Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said today: “Both busi­ness­es will con­tin­ue to be a tar­get of the cam­paign until they end all work at Shell sites.”

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Cor­rib protests – if Tues­day was not mad enough try today
26.8.11
MEP assault­ed, work halt­ed for six hours, cam­paign­ers dri­ve into refin­ery and bounced back out again four hours lat­er

Local Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers and their sup­port­ers at Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are rest­ing after anoth­er bizarre day of lows, highs and out­right idio­cy dur­ing their ongo­ing protest against Shell in co. Mayo.

The day start­ed unpromis­ing­ly with a 6am sor­tie against the com­pound at Aghoos seek­ing to exploit a cou­ple of weak points in the fence. Shel­l’s con­trac­tors Road­bridge and Shevlins are rac­ing to fin­ish the first bit of work in con­struct­ing the fenc­ing and new entrance way. Every moment is count­ing for them. This left a cou­ple of promis­ing gaps which peo­ple from the camp sought to exploit in their dawn raid.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was not to be. Secu­ri­ty from IRMS were aggres­sive from the begin­ning and were drag­ging peo­ple across hard-core and the road. Though the main tar­get failed, a sec­ondary one saw two peo­ple get in. As oth­er weak points were probed, one pro­test­er who was on the road was delib­er­ate­ly charged from behind, trip­ping them face-first onto the road. This was all pho­tographed; a com­plaint to a Sergeant import­ed from Gal­way was nat­u­ral­ly treat­ed with dis­dain, the gar­daí hap­pi­ly tak­ing their place as part of Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty. This has already been report­ed to the Amnesty/Frontline human rights observ­er in the area and will be pur­sued.

Peo­ple returned to camp to get a bit of rest and recu­per­ate. Just before mid­day, Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy (of the Social­ist Par­ty) and a num­ber of sup­port­ers turned up. They were shown the camp and giv­en an update as to how the cam­paign has been going.

While this was hap­pen­ing a group of peo­ple wait­ed near the junc­tion near Gle­n­amoy, a key turn­ing point for the vehi­cles com­ing between the refin­ery at Bel­linaboy and the Aghoos com­pound. Most trucks and trac­tors along this route are escort­ed by gar­daí, who have placed offi­cers along this route, and whose vans reg­u­lar­ly fol­low peo­ple walk­ing it.

Despite all this atten­tion from gar­daí, quick think­ing meant that one per­son was able to jump on top of a Bar­retts Quar­ry truck – the firm pro­vid­ing much of the hard-core – at around 1pm. It was a beau­ti­ful moment. Campers, locals, Paul Mur­phy & co all con­verged on the site. A good natured protest ensued, with peo­ple laugh­ing, jok­ing, singing, chil­dren mak­ing water bal­loons and the per­son on top of the truck giv­ing us a ren­di­tion of “Which Side Are You On”, re-word­ed to take in Shell.

In the refin­ery a back­log of trucks and oth­er vehi­cles began to build up. The pub­lic order team turned up with their cher­ry pick­er to remove the per­son on top of the truck. Those in the road sat down and formed two lines wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er with the aim of stop­ping the cher­ry-pick­er com­ing in. The thugs from the pub­lic order team wad­ed in, as ever, drag­ging peo­ple out, rip­ping cloth­ing and using pres­sure points on the ear. Paul Mur­phy, who was involved in the line was among those assault­ed in this fash­ion. Nat­u­ral­ly he was livid. Word is that the sto­ry is going ‘viral’.

Not to be deterred, after the per­son on the truck was removed and arrest­ed, peo­ple decamped to the front of the refin­ery. Num­bers grew to over 50 as more locals came to sup­port. It was fan­tas­tic to see old faces again, some­thing that real­ly boost­ed the campers. It was clear there was a buzz despite the rain that came on. There was more play­ing in front of the gates, and a deter­mi­na­tion to resist in the air. For those who had been at the morn­ing protest, it was such a lift. Gar­daí and secu­ri­ty stayed clear; the line of trucks backed up inside the refin­ery grew longer. The per­son who had been arrest­ed was charged, released and came to join the protest.

Even­tu­al­ly Shell caved in. They parked up the trucks and shut up shop at Aghoos at 6.30pm. Though hav­ing pushed their work­ers to keep to the exist­ing timetable, the day was lost to the cam­paign­ers. Fear­ing that they might try and take some of the vehi­cles out the back gate, peo­ple drove around, dri­ving up close to the back gate. Two of these cars dri­ven by locals (well known to secu­ri­ty) and con­tain­ing just as recog­nis­able peo­ple were waved through the refin­ery gates by secu­ri­ty. So, we sus­pect, heads are going to roll. One car drove around and back out again with­out secu­ri­ty actu­al­ly being aware of this. The oth­er stayed in and drove around the refin­ery, two fin­gers up to all who think they can run rough-shod over the peo­ple of Erris. Nat­u­ral­ly, the gar­daí, late to the par­ty this time, then began stop­ping work­ers going in. It was a great turn around to a long day. Now, for anoth­er plan­ning meet­ing…

For Paul Mur­phy’s own account:
I was just about to fin­ish this report when we heard… two IRMS (Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty) minibus­es were blocked for an hour. And the car was still in the refin­ery as of 8pm. So down we head again, bare­ly fin­ish­ing inner. Secu­ri­ty had sur­round­ed the car at the inner perime­ter fence as it was try­ing to leave. For some very bizarre rea­son they would not let the car leave by the gate direct­ly in front of it, but want­ed it to go all the way to the back gate.

The occu­pants refused that option as they were wor­ried they would be ambushed. A trac­tor was brought and attached to the back of the car by a rope. For the next hour and a half the car was bounced back­wards across the site. The idio­cy of the peo­ple doing this meant that the car was con­stant­ly bounc­ing and knock­ing against the back of the trac­tor. Once occu­pant phoned the gar­daí for help but the per­son answer­ing the 999 call laughed. It is not hard to see why the gar­daí in Erris are not trust­ed by the peo­ple who live there.

By 9pm a crowd of locals and peo­ple from the camp had assem­bled out­side the back gate in sup­port. Num­bers swelled to forty by 10pm when the trac­tor final­ly brought the car out — gar­daí and secu­ri­ty filled out into the road — the secu­ri­ty clear­ly act­ing like cops again – push­ing con­cerned friends and fam­i­ly away. It was a relief to see our friends safe again.

A long, exhaust­ing day, but amaz­ing in so many unex­pect­ed ways. Wel­come to Mayo.
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

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Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
August 26 2011
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

*FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:*
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp 085 1141170

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
Relat­ed Link: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

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Dai­ly Protests in Mayo, Num­bers Build­ing
Actions are con­stant, some­times 3 or 4 in a day

Between lock-ons, mass tres­pass­es, lor­ry climb­ing and a breach of secu­ri­ty at Shel­l’s refin­ery, this week brought a lot of peo­ple out protest­ing. Locals who haven’t been out on the roads in years have come out this week, and momen­tum is build­ing.

Here are some pho­tos from Wednes­day 24th August that haven’t been post­ed. Tues­day and Thurs­day were so full of events that these pho­tos did­n’t make it up. But things are hap­pen­ing every day, keep look­ing at the shelltosea.com web­site, twit­ter, and indy­media to stay post­ed.

Wednes­day’s events began with a 6am tres­pass onto Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose. Soon after a few peo­ple went to join the locals who are at the refin­ery gates every morn­ing, and 6 peo­ple sat down in the road wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er to stop a trac­tor. Gar­dai dragged peo­ple out of the road for the trac­tor to pass. After this one per­son man­aged to climb on top of a truck deliv­er­ing bog­mats out­side the refin­ery. The per­son stayed up for about 10 min­utes but when a gar­da climbed onto the lor­ry and wres­tled her D‑lock away, pre­vent­ing her from lock­ing on, she came down and was not arrest­ed.

Lat­er that day Shell ille­gal­ly extend­ed their Augh­oose com­pound into the pub­lic road, using har­ris fenc­ing to reduce the road to one lane. Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty then stood in the pub­lic road, and work­ers yet again stopped traf­fic when­ev­er a deliv­ery was being made to the com­pound (which hap­pens 3–4 times an hour and can mean 5–30 min­utes of road clo­sure). When peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp saw them putting up fenc­ing in the road peo­ple went down to take advan­tage of the nar­row road for the next trac­tor deliv­ery. How­ev­er once again Gar­dai and IRMS worked togeth­er to push peo­ple into ditch­es, con­tain peo­ple, and clear the road.

Hon­est to god direct quote from MY 31 Sergeant Richard Maho­ny, explain­ing why peo­ple must clear the road, “For your own health and safe­ty, or we’ll throw you in the ditch.”

Apolo­gies for the belat­ed­ly post­ed pho­tos, it is not easy keep­ing up with media stuff when actions are hap­pen­ing con­stant­ly! There is plen­ty to do that does­n’t involve protest­ing as well, includ­ing tend­ing to the three gar­dens, cook­ing the com­mu­nal meals, main­tain­ing the wind tur­bines, and every­thing else it takes to main­tain the camp!

The camp is locat­ed in a field over­look­ing the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose, between Bel­lan­aboy and Pul­lath­omas. Come for a vis­it any­time! Con­tact the camp at rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

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Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
From 6.00am to 9.30am Fri­day 26th August, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes.

This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see above, or
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
http://www.paulmurphymep.eu/breaking-news-how-the-gardai-assaulted-me-and-other-peaceful-protestors-in-rossport