August 2010

Yesterday people from the local community of Pullathomas and Rossport and Solidarity campers lead by the rousing sound of a visiting bagpiper and drummer, returned to one of Shell's drilling rigs, gaining access at low tide across the exposed sand bars of Sruwaddacon bay. On arriving at the rig a number of people surrounded the drill casing and danced around it before forming a tight huddle to prevent any further work occurring. Meanwhile others held a large banner and occupied the area while children played in the sand.

Files are being prepared for the DPP following the latest attempts to disrupt the work being done to pump ashore natural gas from the Corrib gas field.
Protesters disrupted exploratory drilling in preparation for bringing the gas ashore at Sruwaddacon Bay last Thursday week and gardai had to be called in to allow workmen to continue the ground testing.
Four people with addresses in London and Nottingham and another from Wales were arrested along with two with Irish addresses.

Shell & Gardaí powerless against community action

Yesterday morning forty people from around Sruwaddacon Estuary brought Shell’s survey work in the area to a complete standstill. The community walked out onto the mudflats at low tide to assert their cockle-picking rights and disrupt Shell’s borehole drilling survey.

At around 11.30am people converged at Aughoose and walked down a public right of way onto the mudflats. The group walked to one of the two jack-up barges and prevented drilling by walking underneath the platform. IRMS - Shell’s private security firm – tried to block their free passage but the people prevailed and walked where they pleased. Three people scaled the legs of the barge and occupied them for about four hours. One person chained himself to the one of the drill-shafts in order to stop the work.

Community Walk Out

AN INQUIRY by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) into complaints about the Corrib gas project last week found that Shell has ‘shown a willingness to address health and safety concerns, of which the revised route for the onshore part of the pipeline seems the clearest proof’.