Updates from Mayo — Shell to sea — London solidarity

15th Sep­tem­ber 2008
Protest at the Shel­l’s Dublin HQ

Activists from dif­fer­ent back­grounds came along to a 1PM protest in sup­port of the actions tak­en in the last week against Shell and the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Hun­dreds of leaflets were dis­trib­uted and many pass­ing motorists beeped their horns in sup­port.

As always a large con­tin­gent of gar­daí were on hand to pro­tect the Shell employ­ees and the com­pa­ny’s prop­er­ty from the entire­ly peace­ful and dig­ni­fied protest out­side.

Around 20 peo­ple took park in a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at 6pm at Shell HQ in sup­port of shell to sea hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

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Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton marked her birth­day with a sev­enth day on hunger strike, while sup­port­ers from the UK & Ire­land demon­strat­ed across Lon­don to bring atten­tion to her protest. Mau­ra, a teacher in NW Mayo, is part of the Shell To Sea Cam­paign which has been active­ly oppos­ing Shel­l’s lat­est attempts to lay an 80 km sea based stretch of gas pipeline.

Mau­ra’s hunger strike began on Tues­day in protest at the arrival of the Soli­taire ship which was to lay the pipeline for Shell. Mau­ra ‘s has declared that her protest will con­tin­ue until the Soli­taire agrees to leave Ire­land with­out lay­ing the pipeline.

Two Irish neigh­bours of Mau­ra pick­et­ed the Shell HQ from mid­night Sun­day until 9am with a can­dle lit vig­il for their friend. At 7am this morn­ing Shell work­ers were greet­ed with leaflets & informed of Mau­ra’s plight.

Next was AllSeas UK Ltd who own the Soli­taire pipe-lay­ing ship. 30 peo­ple banged pans, blew whis­tles & hand­ed out leaflets out­side the reg­is­tered office of AllSeas. A blank stick­er had been placed over their com­pa­ny label & some­one from inside the build­ing claimed that no-one was home. Even­tu­al­ly a secu­ri­ty guard took a let­ter from the pro­test­ers, addressed to the Chief Exec­u­tive, demand­ing that the Soli­taire is removed from Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly.

After an hour at AllSeas the crowd processed to the Irish embassy shout­ing ”Irish woman on hunger strike. No new Shell pipeline”. The Irish embassy refused to take a let­ter from an elder­ly Mayo woman. The pro­test­ers were ask­ing that the Irish embassy pro­tect its cit­i­zens such as Mau­ra who are attempt­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty from the health and safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal night­mare that the pipeline pos­es, instead of sup­port­ing the Gar­da intim­i­da­tion and bru­tal­i­ty.

The Nor­we­gian embassy was the last to be vis­it­ed. Nor­way is prof­i­teer­ing from the oppres­sion of peo­ple in Ire­land. It’s state oil com­pa­ny, Sta­toil is work­ing in part­ner­ship with Shell. Here a mem­ber of staff did come out to meet us and accept­ed a burn­ing can­dle as a sym­bol of our sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra and the request of the cam­paign that the Nor­we­gian Gov­ern­ment send the Soli­taire home.

As Mau­ra’s con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rates, the Soli­taire is yet to respond and leave Ire­land. Dai­ly protests con­tin­ue with a inter­na­tion­al day of sol­i­dar­i­ty action planned for this com­ing Sat­ur­day.

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Shell Demos from Thur 11th Sept

There were two demon­stra­tions held in Dublin on Thurs­day in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle in Ross­port against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties.

One demo was held out­side Shel­l’s head­quar­ters ear­li­er in the evening and lat­er there was a demo out­side the GPO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m84LRWsLUr4

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Sep­tem­ber 14th 2008

Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship pre­tends not to lis­ten: mean­while 500+ cars join protest ral­ly in Erris

Hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s daugh­ter Astrid and son Iol­lan trav­elled to Killy­begs Co. Done­gal, today to make a per­son­al plea to the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and its cap­tain Mr. Simon van der Plicht to leave Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly, and allow Mau­ra to end her strike. Mean­while, over 500 cars (with their dri­vers and pas­sen­gers) drove around Erris this after­noon in a mas­sive show of sup­port for Ms. Har­ring­ton, who has now entered the sixth day of her hunger strike.

A dep­u­ta­tion from Shell to Sea trav­elled to Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal today to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and with its cap­tain, Mr. Simon van der Plicht. the dep­u­ta­tion includ­ed two of hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s chil­dren — her daugh­ter Astrid, and her only son Iol­lan, who was bru­tal­ly arrest­ed by Shel­l’s Gar­daí dur­ing yes­ter­day’s beach recla­ma­tion action in Glen­gad, Co. Mayo.

At about lunchtime, soon after the Shell to Sea dep­u­ta­tion arrived in Killy­begs, radio con­tact was estab­lished with the Soli­taire, which replied to ini­tial VHF radio con­tact. Once the dep­u­ta­tion announced their iden­ti­ty and their pur­pose over the radio, all radio con­tact with the Soli­taire ceased, and all com­mu­ni­ca­tions on VHF radio chan­nels were met with silence. Dis­ap­point­ed with the ship’s atti­tude but undaunt­ed, the dep­u­ta­tion kept com­mu­ni­cat­ing their mes­sage to the Soli­taire over the radio, with Astrid and Iol­lan elo­quent­ly explain­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Mayo and why their moth­er has cho­sen to go on hunger strike, and they made dig­ni­fied requests for the Soli­taire to leave Irish waters, so that their moth­er can end her strike. The oth­er ships that were involved in Shel­l’s abortive pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tion in Mayo were sim­i­lar­ly addressed; these com­mu­ni­ca­tions were also met with silence. A fur­ther attempt at com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Shel­l’s ships some two hours lat­er was met with silence again. The Shell to Sea del­e­ga­tion kept try­ing to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion for about a half an hour, but were ulti­mate­ly fruit­less.

Between the com­mu­ni­ca­tion attempts, Astrid board­ed the Irish Naval Ser­vice ship the LÉ Eithne, which was moored in Killy­begs har­bour. She man­aged to encounter its cap­tain, and she began explain­ing to him calm­ly the sit­u­a­tion in her home place in NW Co. Mayo and her dis­gust at the Irish Navy’s role in Shel­l’s attempt to begin pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay, but he walked away from her with­out com­ment­ing. She was then escort­ed off the ship.

Mean­while back in Co. Mayo a motor car ral­ly of over 500 cars made its way around Erris this after­noon — a sign of the mas­sive sup­port Shell to Sea’s and Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s stand com­mand in the local­i­ty. The ral­ly start­ed at Bar­na­tra at 3:30pm and is con­tin­u­ing at the time of post­ing.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton entered the sixth day of her hunger strike this lunchtime. Her health and spir­its remain strong, as she stays in her car parked before the Shell Glen­gad com­pound gates. The gates area is kept con­stant­ly lit by Shell an an attempt to dis­rupt her sleep­ing pat­tern, and the numer­ous Gar­daí sta­tioned there con­tin­ue to behave in a aggres­sive abu­sive man­ner. A vig­il of sup­port­ers keeps watch on Mau­ra 24 hours a day, and help com­bat the var­i­ous Gar­da ver­bal and phys­i­cal nas­ti­ness­es. Her hunger strike will con­tin­ue until she receives sol­id assur­ances from either the Soli­taire or its own­ers Allseas Group SA that the ship will not be pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay this year and will be leav­ing Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters with­out delay.

Come to Mayo and see for your­self what Shell and the state have done to a resist­ing uncon­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ty!