Workers Solidarity Movement

The Irish navy gunboat, the LE Orla has been mobilized in the latest escalation of the standoff between Shell, the Irish state and Shell to Sea campaigners in County Mayo. The standoff comes after a relatively quiet period in the campaign and centers on attempts by campaigners to halt Shell's pipe- laying work in Broadhaven Bay and on Glengad beach, where Shell intend to bring their high-pressure gas pipeline ashore. The Irish navy gunboat has been called in after a request by Gardai and will support Garda facilitation of the Shell's works in the bay.

At this stage its unsurprising in the least to read Royal Dutch Shell propoganda being presented as "journalism" by the Irish Independent and its stable mate, the Sunday Indo. Most readers of this site will be only too aware that the paper's owner 'Sir' Tony O Reilly has a very practical and profitable interest in the vast amounts of oil and gas of the West coast of Ireland.

However even by the hack standards of journalism, and right wing opinions, that grace the paper, yesterdays piece by Maeve Sheehan suggest not just the usual biased and unnuaced 'presentation of facts' but has an almost willful ignorance of the facts on the ground. Combined with a willingness to present Shell and Police PR without any simple background checks or colloratory evidence over such an 'extensive' (read: its got a big word count) this article would be most useful for any who sought a practical example of what Noam Chomsky describes as the 'manufacturing of consent'

This afternoon, the Shell to Sea campaigner Maura Harrington ended her 10-day-old hunger strike after confirmation that the Solitaire had indeed left Irish waters. She read a statement to the press and the public outside the gates of Shell’s compound at Glengad in Erris, Co. Mayo, and then announced that her hunger strike had come to an end.

Around thirty people took part in a protest at Shell HQ on Lesson street last night. Here are some photos and audio recording from the event.

This is an audio interview recorded by a phone with Cormac, a WSM member who is in Rossport. He reports on the latest developments in the campaign.

After a quiet period the struggle against Shell’s attempt to impose a dangerous experimental gas pipeline in Erris, Co. Mayo has escalated once more over the last month. 

Interview with Fergal who had just returned from a weekend trip to Rossport and who puts the events of the last week in the context of the struggle of the last years.

The Rossport Solidarity Camp was originally set up on ‘Rossport 5’ Philip McGrath’s land in 2005. In the Spring of 2006 the camp was set up again close to the beach at Glengad near the ‘landfall’ for Shell’s proposed pipeline. Following a mendacious but successful application by Mayo County Council for an order of eviction against the camp in September of 2007, the camp agreed to leave the dunes by January 1st 2008. Since then the 'camp' has organised from the Rossport Solidarity House in Pollathomas

Action against Shell's entirely illegal fencing off of public beach in a Special Area of Conservation in Mayo.

Anarchists in Galway will be giving out the new issue of Workers Solidarity this Saturday...