Tales of an activist hobo part five (what to do when shell drills your S.A.C)

There are certain things about the rules that exist here in Rossport and the surrounding area. Since i’ve arrived i’ve found that there seems to be one set of rules for the locals and one for Shell. When Shell originally wanted to place a pipeline through peoples land, past their front doors and up into national parkland they were turned down. When the surveyors were chased off the farmers land, the farmers were jailed for 94 days for being in comtempt of court, basically for not letting Shell have their land. The Garda actively ordered a JCB digger to drive through a crowd trying to stop trespassing of Shell workers even with a legal injunction.

This said, whenever we set foot on Shell’s land, land bought from the publically owned parks department (coillte) we’re dragged off by the scruff of our necks. The same is to be said about last week. Two months ago a court order gave the solidarity camp, a network of tents around a central wooden structure to be removed from an S.A.C or Special area of conservation, due to the ‘irreperable damage’ that it caused. Last week RPS, under the instruction of Shell were drilling bore holes and setting wrought iron posts in concrete.

(John Monaghan points out the Illegal road to the SAC)

When we arrived to stop this happening, the police turned up. We pointed out that RPS’ actions were illegal under EU law, the Garda ignored us. We were told that he himself Supt. Gilligan, couldn’t stop Shell. That all his powers were concerned with trespassing, and work would go on. This is what we deal with every day, every day we face a complete mockery of justice and the legal system.

As a child my mum constantly reminded me that ‘life’s not fair’, this always perplexed me. I’d think with the clarity of childlike naivity, ‘if people make up the world and the majority of the worlds problems, then surely we could make life fair’. It always seemed to me to be a bit of a cop out, like the saying, ‘I’m only human’. As if being human is a cosmic loophole, last time i checked i was human. Alright, if you’re demanding that I should fly to the moon on the back of a mauve piggy bank, or wrestle an alligator with my earlobes, I might use ‘I’m only human’ as a legitimate excuse. It’s when it gets used as a get out of jail card, when someone can’t be bothered, or is selfish, or is any of the many negative factors of the human psyche. When the phrase, ‘i’m only human’ is used here it shoud really be replaced with, ‘I’m a selfish twat’, or ‘ I’m not a nice person’ or ‘please stick a sharp stick into my genetalia becuase I don’t deserve to breed’. ‘It’s not fair’ shouldn’t be used as a get out clause, but a call to arms. A statement that should feed a furnace of anger in you, make you stand up and do something, not roll your eyes and flick over to nuts tv but grab a large stick and poke it into the general crotch area of the unfair prick who sparks this emotion.

So, when Supt. Gilligan tells us that we WILL be moved in five minutes time, that’s the moment when i put my hand out to my fellow camper and bunk him over the fence, so like a spider monkey he runs up the side of the drill and plants himself on the top, our little lookout, searching for the community liason officer, that we’ve been looking for over the last 3 weeks. The cops are their normal keystone comedy selves, scuffling and slipping in the mud, shiny soft leather shoes skidding with comical glee. Eoin (pronounced Owen) swings his little legs like a school child on a stool as he is negotiated with. I say negotiate, i mean, asked politly and somewhat desperately to come down. We get the tea and biscuits in, and chat about our day.

(our little spider monkey)

A grand forty five minutes later, after much arguing, pleading and hassling, the crew finally agreed to pack up, if our little spider monkey descended, and he did, so they packed up and left.They have been in trouble for drilling on the S.A.C. Oh they were going to dig elsewhere, in Leana mor, coillte land to be precise, national parkland that is handed over by the council happily to Shell, but what happened there, i’ll tell you next time.

As for Eoin, our little drill rig running spiderman.

He’s only human.

Check the video footage.

Tales of an activist hobo part four, (the facts of camp)

There are some basic facts that in my previous writings’ I might have omitted, taken as common knowledge or basically forgotten to point out. They mainly concern the workings of the solidarity camp itself. When I first came here there were quite a few people milling about and passing through. It was coming to the end of the summer, and every weekend there were people from all over the country passing through, helping out and contributing to the camp either as a member or as a subject of conversation. However at my arrival there was a definite inner circle. Also, the camp itself had become fractured. Originally, the camp consisted of a network of, ‘benders’ (large domed tents made of hazlewood and tarps) and a central communal building set amongst the sand dunes of broadhaven bay, along with an office/house in Glencastle. However, just around the time of my appearance, the camp had an injunction placed against it, forcing most of the members to move to a house atop a hill overlooking the estuary. The house, is a four bedroom bungalow without electricity central heating or hot water. It was abundant with bedding and beds and has the most spectacular view, although the walk from the pub will give you an asthma attack.

The house on the hill.

The view from the house.

When I first appeared on the scene, the house’s residents were, monotone English/Swedish ‘Glasto’ Dave, tall talkative Ray, pixie gypsy john and Kate, a slim, blonde, ’savoury vegan’ girl who lived in a converted police van out front. After the first week we were joined by Aron, one of the old school lot, who’d help build the beach camp and took the form of a small dwarf like man, sporting long blonde hair and a blazing ginger beard. On camp lived, the original dark horse, Owen, Maternal hippy Julie and anarchist skinhead Bob (although that’s not his real name.). Carl was the main resident and guardian of the office, a large, middle-aged hackney lad with a dear love of arsenal football club and bad language, conversations between us sound like an x-rated only fools and horses. After the first week, john and ray had left. Leaving Kate, Dave occasionally Aron and myself as the house crew, Eoin, Julie and Bob as the camp occupiers.

On my return, things are very different. Julie and Kate are in England, dealing wit family tribulations, Bob is on a haitus. He was one of the founders of the solidarity camp and after nearly two years of being part of a protest movement, threatened with arrest and living in a permanent tent, he understandably needed a rest. The winters here are renowned for being harsh and dark. As we’re on the coast of the atlantic, you can imagine the kind of unabated weather that we’re open too. Thrashing wind and rain, that nearly picks you off your feet.

With the winter closing in, and the camp needing to be shut down, the main job was to get a solar panel up on the house for electricity. Cooking in candlelight, although romantic, is a fucking pain in the arse, as is cleaning the kitchen. That’s why, the house’s interior generally looked like a French peasent used to live in it, before leaving for greener pastures.

Aron is pretty much in charge when it comes to anything mechanical or built. He pretty much overlooked and was the main force in the construction of the camp, owns the camera I film on, and this laptop that I’m writing this on. He is an engineer by trade, and has pretty much adopted the role of alpha male. He’s a mardy bastard though. Probably much in the same way others have called me mardy, affection comes in a tirade of abusive nicknames, all problems are someone elses fault, nobody apart from Aron know’s what they are doing and he’s the authority on everything. Now this isn’t entirely untrue, but it can be slightly irritating at times. Oh, and he doesn’t talk in the mornings. It took me two weeks to figure out it wasn’t anything personal and he ignores everyone then. He calls us his dogs, I call him amngst other things, santa’s angry nephew, glumli, and mardy the eighth dwarf. He’s like a norse god of diy, and a very important lynchpin to the group. To be honest if he wasn’t about nothing would get done.

So, the first few days of my return saw little or no action. We painted, welded, cleaned and drilled. I learnt a little about solar panels, exchanged a lot of abuse held the ladder a lot. What was new, was the fact that RPS, an engineering firm, that is basically a flunky of Shell had been drilling core samples along the proposed pipeline route. This is a pipeline that will run 300 bar pressure unrefined gas a few hundred meters away from peoples houses up to a refinery. It’s so dodgy, nobody will claim responsibility for the safety on it. It’s a strange situation.

The drilling that was going on at this point was a few hundred yards from the camp, on the beach. This is the same area, we have to move off because it’s a, ’special area of conservation’ protected under Eu law. Well, we had to do something.

I’ll tell you what later.
Oooh, tension.

Tales of an activist hobo Part three (to Leeds and back)

My return journey to Ireland was a pale comparison to my trip to Leeds. When I took it apon myself to ramble back to blighty, I also took the initiative to steal 4 bottles of good red wine, which I drank with vigour, only taking the odd break to either piss or mumble nonsense at my poor travelling companion, whom I’d conned into travelling friendship before the demise of my second bottle. The end result was when I finally arrived in the north, I was a whirling dervish of verbal confusion and physical contradiction. My arms and legs, devoid of orchestrated movement, my mind slipping in and out of lucidity, and everything I said was complete bollocks.

Sadly, due to the fact that I had my entire life, crammed into an ungainly rucksack strapped to my back and causing me to sweat, gasp and stagger without the aid of booze, even my LS6 renowned five finger discount abilities, couldn’t mask my conspicuous personage. In other words, I stood out like a twelve inch erection in a girls changing room. Not totally unwanted, but easy to spot.

So, I took my twenty hour slog, through England, Wales and finally into Ireland with no booze, just two stolen sarnies, my book (Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh) a rucksack as heavy as Jupiter and myself.

Of course I’d missed the morning train, due to my inherit disorganisation, and total devotion to my duvet, so I had to wait around for two hours in town. After this it was pretty plain sailing, I spent most of it asleep, and I found it funny as, at one point I was reading about school life in northern wales as I shared a train with a group of school children going through northern Wales. I listened to the 10 year old girls explain to each other that they were Goths because they owned a pencil case and a skirt with skulls on, watching them think of strange and transparent excuses to talk to blonde haired dopey boys, as the lads behind me compare fantasy football teams.

The ferry trip was a bit of a drag, I’d planned to half inch a bottle of Jamesons form the ferry shop, unfortunately the six foot security guard had me pegged from the minute I walked in. I had to take a tactical retreat, and was forced to watch the new Mr. bean film for entertainment. I don’t think I need to tell you this, but for anyone who hasn’t guessed. It’s shit.

(Dublin)

I arrived in Dublin having missed my train. There’s only two a day to Ballina, so I was bound to have missed it. I rang the Dublin contigent of Shell to Sea, Grainne and Keever, then after a landslide of directions, which I promptly forgot, I followed my crooked nose to their house, successfully backtracking from the last time I was there. I was pretty fucking pleased with myself I can tell you. The girls were excellent hosts, supplying a lake of tea, smiles and somewhere to sleep. you couldn’t ask for more.

I missed the morning train again, bunked the tram fair and got to hueston station with an hour to wait. I was dangerously close to finishing my book, and had to resort to nicking, ‘I am legend’ from the Station’s bookstore. I pretty much devoured it on the train, a tale about the last man on earth, surrounded by a world of zombie/vampires. It all seemed rather believable, watching the suited commuters blankly shuffle about to a fro, briefly stopping to purchase, caffeine free, orange mocha choca chino frappe’s or whatever designer label drink has been recommended in last Sunday’s lifestyle supplement. I munched on my Cornish pasty and read.

Four hours later I was being bounced around the back of the McGrath’s bus on my way to the solidarity camp. I was suffering multiple anal fractures from the pseudo-road that was more like an endurance test than a fareway. Next time I’m sitting closer to the front, I swear. I arrive to a dark, electricity and friend free house, fall over , walk into a door, light a candle, talk to myself about my situation, before heading down to the camp on the beach, where I’m greeted with a gruff insult and get down to making dinner.

Pretty uneventful.
But that was just a journey.
After that it get’s very interesting.

Tommy2Shoes forever.

Tales of an activist hobo, Part one (my first protest at bellanaboy)

Well, it was a generally high octane day yesterday. A 6.30 sharp start, troops ready and down to the site. Activists and anrchists are not reknowned for their organisation skills and that’s not an unfounded assumption. We mainly floated about the front gate aimlessly and obviously a disjointed band of hippies taking the piss and generally being useless. Thank god the security are worse than us, or maybe they’re on our side who know’s because come 8.30 am this happened.

We were in, funtimes. Still it was like a dog with a stick, he’s chuffed he’s got it, but really doesn’t know what to do with it, once it’s in his chops. So we scampered about looking for, ‘core samples’ of sub-standard concrete that was rumoured to be making up the foundations of the refinary. We didn’t really know what substandard concrete looked like, how to get a core sample or how to analyse it. Despite these trivial facts we demanded to see the forman, health and safety and mooched about looking at stuff. More importantly we were stopping work, disrupting stuff and having a right giggle.

We split up, reformed, argued over if we should take up the offer of a onsite tour and generally didn’t know what to do. That was until 53 year old firecracker, maura decided to block lorries. Well, it all kicked off then, the garda (police) got involved, taking three of them to move her, everyone piled in stopping lorries, taking the piss and generally being a pain in the arse, something that comes naturally to me.

It got heated for a bit, I was picked up by my throat and the old bill tried to bundle Dave into a copcar without charging him with anything, which could’ve meant taking him off for a good ol’ fashioned kicking. Just look at the homo-erotic look on the little piggy wiggy faces.

Somehow Dave slipped outta the garda’s burley arms like a well greased willy, still don’t know how, it was a bit weird, and the subject of a lot of discussion. Then as quickly as we were in, we were out, to a round of applause and thirty rounds of tea and sarnies (they love tea and sarnies here, a good sign). It was a fun day, a confusingly easy invasion, but a good days work. Although I left my coat somewhere I think.

And I still need to sort my dole out.
Shit.

Tales of an activist hobo Part two (Hot stuff outside the refinery)

Well, Yesterday saw more activity and madness. We rose to news of Shell’s surveyors being on the beach. We’d heard that they’d been sniffing around the previous day. Owen, one of the camp members, had questioned them on their business and if they’d had permission to be on the land to which the surveyors had seemed confused and scarpered quick smart.
So in the morning we were tumbling through bracken and treacherous heather infested fields to scramble finally to the beach, only the realise that the contractors had headed off in their SUV’s to basecamp.

A bit of a waste of time, but never the less, an exciting wake up call.
We headed off to the Picket afterwards. It’s held at the main gate, the only gate where officially heavy goods can pass through. The plan being to block the cement trucks coming in and basically be a nuisance. Well we achieved it, and at about 11am we blocked the gate, stopping a large cement truck from getting in.

After about 15 minutes, the truck turned round and went through another gate illegally. We held our ground and waited for more trucks to arrive. With them cam the Gardai. Only two of them turned up at first, we pointed out that none of the lorries carried the stickers that they were required to have. And their insurance was out of date on all three of them.

They started taking names. Not mine. They asked us to move. They pushed us out of the way. The trucks went in.

The gate opened for others to come out.
We blocked it, we sat down, we scuffled, we got pulled about. Julie, our blonde ,dreadlocked english hippy got dragged by her hair (she lost a dread) , Owen and others got pulled through puddles and gravel, i got booted, and had a couple of comedy moments including what appears to be a waltz with a police officer. I waspleased to see that the most tenacious of us were the dainty blonde girls, although the silent Finbar did crack me up with his Ali style footwork when crossed by the old bill.

I was told that they were especially careful with us compared to normal. Normally they’d beat the crap out of us.

So now i’m trying to load the footage up to youtube.
I wanted to post the photo’s and footage up on this, but shit happens.
It’s taking fucking ages and crashing constantly.
My back hurts.
We still have to hang the doors in the house, sort out the spare room. Make some bunk beds, build booby twaps.
Finally got the footage up.
Have a look.

Eat more fresh fish.
Edit.
Kiss myself, huh step back ahuh.
Bye.

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