History of the Rossport Solidarity Camp

At the invite of the local community, the Rossport Solidarity Camp was set up in June 2005 on the route of the proposed Shell pipeline. We support the local community and the Shell to Sea campaign’s struggle for justice against the Irish Government and Shell. The camp provides a base for people who wish to visit the area and learn more about the community campaign.

After the jailing of the Rossport Five (James Brendan Philbin, brothers Philip and Vincent McGrath, Willie Corduff and Micheál Ó Seighin) it was feared that Shell would attempt to lay the pipeline to the Corrib Gas Field on their lands in their absence. Campers and residents began to picket the Shell compound site in Rossport. During this time campers moved out of the house in which they had been staying and began to set up a camp. In a short space of time, and in a fairly ad-hoc, spontaneous and improvised manner, the camp was assembled. Cooking equipment and experience came from the Bitchin’ Kitchen Collective, a marquee was donated by Dissent! (one of the groups organising the G8 protests in Scotland), some tents were borrowed from here and there, some bodies came from NUI Galway Ecology Society, some from environmentalist group Gluaiseacht. All this was put together early in July, on Philip McGrath’s small farm and right on the supposed pipeline route. A further camp was set up on the other side of the estuary from Rossport, in Glengad, where the landfall for the pipeline was intended to be.

From the end of June 2005 the main activity of the camp was picketing the construction compound in Rossport in conjunction with Rossport residents. This was done from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, with two people on three-hour shifts keeping watch. For two months there was also a constant Garda presence at the compound sites. In early July, Shell, unable to continue work due to the constant pickets, announced a suspension of work on the pretext of calling for a "period of calm".

Solidarity Week & the Grassroots Gathering, August 2005

At the end of August the Rossport Solidarity Camp organised a solidarity week culminating in the Tenth Grassroots Gathering. The solidarity week featured a social night for campers and residents, workshops, a Rossport Five street theatre in Castlebar, and a blockade of a Statoil (the junior partner in the Corrib project) depot in Ballina. At the Tenth Grassroots Gathering there were speakers from, or speaking about, Derrybrien Development Society, the Woodland League, Galway for a Safe Environment, Gorleben anti-nuclear protest camp, anti-pylon groups from Roscommon and Donegal and veterans of the campaign against Merrill Dow in Cork in the late 1980s. There were also skills share workshops. Over one hundred people attended the Gathering that weekend, with Rossport Solidarity Camp briefly blossoming into three camps on the pipeline route.

Winter: preparing for Rossport Solidarity Camp ‘06

The camp disbanded at the end of the construction season in October both because Shell had ceased work and because conditions on the campsite became too wet as autumn advanced. People involved in the camp did not want to leave the area and so a house was rented not far from Rossport where an office with Internet and phone access was set up. Throughout the winter months preparations were made for the coming summer’s camp. Camp participants spoke at meetings around Ireland and 'building the camp' meetings in Dublin and Galway were held to get more people involved. Two participants in the camp went on speaking tour of England before Christmas, speaking at social centres and various other venues in London, Brighton, Nottingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Lancaster, and Oxford. A further speaking tour of Scotland and England happened in February and talks were given in Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as visiting several protest camps; Faslane near Glasgow, Bilston near Edinburgh, Nine Ladies near Sheffield and Camp Bling in Southend-on-Sea. In January a camper attended the World Social Forum in Venezuela on behalf of the Shell to Sea campaign. As well as promoting the camp through talks and meetings decisions as to how to run the camp in regard to issues such as the approach to the media, decision making structures, dealing with sexual harassment etc. were discussed. A skill share weekend was held at Halloween with workshops on permaculture, alternative energy, campaign tactics, media and "safer spaces" (dealing with issues of sexual harassment within activist circles). On the 17th and 18th of February actions of solidarity were held across Ireland and Britain as well as in Holland and Sweden aimed at highlighting the reopening of the camp and marking the beginning of a new season of resistance against Shell and the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government.

February 2006: The Camp Reopens

Rossport Solidarity Camp re-opened on the 25th of February 2006. Whereas in 2005 the camp was located on the route of the pipeline in Rossport, it was decided that this year’s camp would be located on the landfall of the pipeline, on the beach at Glengad. On the weekend of the 25th over thirty Shell to Sea supporters from across the country assisted campers and Rossport residents in the construction of the camp. A marquee and several benders (structures made from bent hazel poles) were constructed that weekend and in the subsequent weeks more benders, compost toilets, food composting facilities, a grey water system, pathways, and a kitchen were built.

June Gathering & August Gathering 2006

On the June Bank Holiday weekend 2006 Rossport Solidarity Camp celebrated 1 years involvement in the Shell to Sea campaign. A gathering was held on the camp with talks, workshops, a tour of the area, movies, music and planning. The weekend included a "privatisation forum" focusing on the privatisation of natural resources with Jose Sagarnaga from the London based Bolivia Solidarity Campaign and Maura Harrington from the Shell to Sea campaign examining issues of ownership and control of Irish natural resources. The weekend also featured a report back from the Global Women's Strike on how women in Venezuela are organising for the return of the oil wealth.

June Gathering 2007

The weekend was packed with practical workshops (eg. dealing with the media, non-violent direct action, legal advice, supporting each other, first aid & preparing for actions) talks and films on Greenham Common, Latin America, Irish natural resources, gas explosions and climate change, Live music and sessions happened throughout the weekend. There was also a popular kid's area with face painting, balloon modeling, shadow puppet making and lantern making.

Eviction

In July 2007, the camp was served with a notice to evict by Mayo County Council, which cited the unauthorised nature of the structures erected and the potential damage to a candidate Special Area of Conservation. The second reason was seen as grossly hypocritical by campers and local people alike, given the council's approval of Shell's plans to dig up the dunes for pipe-laying. No sooner had the camp left, Shell moved in to start illegally drilling boreholes on the Special Area of Conservation, despite protests and not having permission. Local people immediately offered the campers different places to stay (as well as raising funds to fight the eviction in court), and a new solidarity house is now set up, with great views of both the original camp and the proposed pipeline route. As the Glengad camp was carefully set up to be as low impact as possible, there is little trace that it even existed. However now with a permanent base, the spirit of the camp lives on and we are in a much stronger position to demand Shell refine at Sea!