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 And their insurance was out of date on all three of them.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.
Tags: activism, bellanaboy, bertie ahern, corporation, county mayo, eire, gas, Ireland, marathon, oil, protest, rossport, rossport solidarity camp, shell, shell to sea, statoil, western ireland
