Rossport Solidarity Camp eviction latest

Update on evic­tion threat to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

After over eigh­teen months of pro­vid­ing a base for activists sup­port­ing the local Shell to Sea cam­paign, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was served notice to quit by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil two weeks ago. For the past year and a half the coun­cil has accept­ed the cam­p’s exis­tence with­out com­plaint. It seems no coin­ci­dence that the coun­cil’s moves to evict the camp come at a time when Shell has been exten­sive­ly sur­vey­ing the estu­ary that runs along­side the camp in prepa­ra­tion for pipeline devel­op­ment. It is like­ly that pres­sure has been applied on the coun­cil to evict now to min­i­mize the risk of dis­rup­tion to the lay­ing of the pipeline.

Update on evic­tion threat to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp

After over eigh­teen months of pro­vid­ing a base for activists sup­port­ing the local Shell to Sea cam­paign, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was served notice to quit by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil two weeks ago. For the past year and a half the coun­cil has accept­ed the cam­p’s exis­tence with­out com­plaint. It seems no coin­ci­dence that the coun­cil’s moves to evict the camp come at a time when Shell has been exten­sive­ly sur­vey­ing the estu­ary that runs along­side the camp in prepa­ra­tion for pipeline devel­op­ment. It is like­ly that pres­sure has been applied on the coun­cil to evict now to min­i­mize the risk of dis­rup­tion to the lay­ing of the pipeline.

On Tues­day the 31st July, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the camp attend­ed a court hear­ing in Castle­bar. Fol­low­ing sub­mis­sions from the cam­p’s bar­ris­ter regard­ing due process and the lack of time giv­en to the camp to pre­pare a case, the judge reluc­tant­ly agreed to adjourn the case until Sep­tem­ber the 3rd. How­ev­er, in the mean­time he imposed an ‘inter­im order of injunc­tion’ which allows only two camp mem­bers to remain liv­ing on site. Notably, pri­or to the hear­ing, the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of both par­ties had agreed terms for an adjourn­ment that allowed more peo­ple to remain on camp. The case is essen­tial­ly a civ­il dis­pute and the judge’s impo­si­tion of more strin­gent terms is indica­tive, once again, of the par­tial­i­ty of the judi­cia­ry with regard to Shell to Sea cas­es.

The pri­ma­ry func­tion of the camp is to pro­vide a space for peo­ple to sup­port the local cam­paign in resist­ing Shell. This can be done most effec­tive­ly if we have a secure base to work from. Con­se­quent­ly, at present, we have decid­ed to vacate the camp in accor­dance with the judge’s order. In an effort to be pre­pared for the dif­fer­ent poten­tial sce­nar­ios we could face, we have sought out pos­si­ble alter­na­tive loca­tions for the camp. Some peo­ple in the cam­paign will con­tin­ue to fight the evic­tion through the courts and after the hear­ing in Sep­tem­ber we will assess our options.

Com­mu­ni­ty sup­port fol­low­ing the evic­tion order has been over­whelm­ing. With­in a week an impres­sive fundrais­ing effort had been ini­ti­at­ed and we had offers of sev­er­al hous­es and fields to relo­cate to. We have also had help with mov­ing, clean­ing, dec­o­rat­ing and fur­nish­ing. Thanks to such incred­i­ble local assis­tance, one of these hous­es has been fixed up in the last week and is now being used as the tem­po­rary Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp base. Over the next few weeks we hope to make sev­er­al oth­er loca­tions inhab­it­able.

Two weeks ago our sit­u­a­tion seemed dire. Today, the spir­it of the camp is vibrant. It is clear that resis­tance here will not be ham­pered by repres­sion. So, while we’re sad to be tem­porar­i­ly giv­ing up our beau­ti­ful seashore home, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp lives on — albeit in a slight­ly less rus­tic form. As before, vis­i­tors are always wel­come.