The ballad of Shell and Rossport

The ballad of Shell and Rossport
Galway Advertiser, November 04, 2010.

By Kevin Higgins

TO SAY that the Shell gas pipeline and terminal in north Mayo has been the subject of controversy would be to understate seriously.

To those not directly involved, the ongoing ‘debate’, which has regularly degenerated into violence with allegations of intimidation on both sides, has often seemed, like Northern Ireland in the seventies, to be one where it’s difficult to give either side unqualified support.

This could be said to mark a failure on the part of the Shell To Sea campaign; another case of the right side losing because it puts its argument histrionically rather than rationally and allows some - ie, those who would be better kept in the background, stapling placards or making sandwiches for visiting protesters - to be spokespersons for the campaign.

The ranting boys and girls of The Sunday Independent have been happy to do their bit to blacken the reputation of Shell To Sea. The ‘documentary’ by Paul Williams, aired on TV3 last year, which tried to paint the campaign as being the plaything of dissident republicans, was the sort of rag journalism one would expect from someone who now writes for The News of The World.

Lorna Siggins is a different kind of journalist and works with facts rather than bar stool opinions of either variety as can be seen from her new book on the subject Once Upon A Time In The West: The Corrib Gas Controversy (Transworld Ireland).

On page 215 she speaks to Sarah Clancy from Galway about the violence Clancy personally witnessed being meted out to protesters by gardaí. Now, while I doubt Sarah and I vote the same way at elections, I believe her when she says she observed a Shell To Sea protester: “being flung to the ground, with first two, then one garda kneeling on his back” as they “pressed his face into the dirt, all the while hitting him with batons”.

There were at least four gardaí involved in this, Clancy says. This is not to paint the campaign as a bunch of angels. I know from personal experience that there are those of the activist left who are willing to use physical intimidation as a tactic and others who are willing to make excuses for such behaviour. In Once Upon A Time In The West, Siggins makes an angel of no one.

The facts Siggins has gathered lead her to be more sympathetic to the protesters than she is to Shell. That as neutral an observer as Lorna Siggins could come to this view should give middle Ireland pause for thought.

If it is true, as Shell To Sea claims, that a natural resource worth hundreds of billions of Euro has been more or less given away to Shell with very little benefit to the Irish exchequer, then this is a very serious matter.

If the Shell To Sea protesters are even half right, then there certainly could have been, and perhaps still is, an alternative to slashing social welfare and services to the disabled and all the other miseries the Colm McCarthys and Peter Sutherlands are currently prescribing for us. Go out tomorrow and buy this book. You can’t afford not to.

link http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/33023

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IRA statement

The IRA's position regarding drug dealers is clear and our actions against them are motivated by the need to ensure the safety of the community.
These actions are welcomed by communities who are suffering at the hands of drug dealers.

Recently, a number of newspapers have run stories claiming that the IRA was involved in drugs and prostitution and that members of the Dublin Brigade had been stood down. The stories are lies.

Subsequently, the IRA sent a statement to the Irish Star Newspaper claiming responsibility for the execution of numerous drug dealers. The Star refused to carry the statement but instead carried statements from a Dublin drugs gang styling itself the "Criminal Action Force" which threatened republicans. The Star newspaper was raided by the Free State Special Branch but nothing was reported in any newspaper. We invite people to analyse these facts for themselves and determine who benefits from this policy of censorship and misinformation.

Copy of IRA statement sent to the Star (below):

17/9/2010

In Response to Recent Sensationalist Media Articles:

The leadership of the IRA wish to clarify our position on these claims: The IRA have never taken money from criminals and then allowed them to continue to operate, we have in fact relieved them of their finances and weaponry then closed down their operations.Allegations have been made that the IRA extorted a large amount of money from drug dealers and criminals. Anyone with evidence to support these claims should come forward immediately.

The leadership of the IRA have never sanctioned such actions and anyone using our name to tax drug dealers and criminals will be executed. In fact the only organisations in Ireland that take money from criminals and allows them to operate are state agencies, on both sides of the border, who take their assets and allow them to carry on their poison trade.

The IRA postion on drug dealers is clear, they deal death to our communities. We deal with them. Some examples are: Matthew Burns, Kieran Flynn, Jason Eagan, Colly Owens, Gerard Staunton, Kieran Doherty,and Sean Winters, amongst others.

To those who believe they can escape the reach of the republican movement, we have also executed drug dealers on the continent who believed they were safe, having fled the country. We have crippled, maimed and exiled numerous others.

Anyone caught up in the world of criminality, drug dealing, or issuing threats to republicans should come forward and admit their involvement now. Anyone who does not avail of this opportunity will face the inevitable consequences.
Those who wish to take on the republican movement should realise this. These parasites are members of a gang, the IRA are members of a disciplined army with experience of war.

Education Is A Right, Not A Privilege

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement in Galway wish to express our complete opposition to the proposed cuts to third-level funding. The Free State government is proposing a doubling of the registration fee to €3,000, decreasing the student grant by 10% and increasing the threshold for qualifying for the grant by 10% in the upcoming budget. This is simply unacceptable.

The vast majority of students who receive the grant depend on it to pay for food, rent, books etc. and would be unable to attend college without it. The raising of the registration fee is also completely unacceptable. Students, as well as many other ordinary people, are being forced to carry the can for an economic crisis that they played no part in causing.

It is estimated that there are between 70,000-100,000 graduates aged between 20-25 on the dole, a far higher proportion than in any other demographic. It is time that we tell the rich that we will no longer accept this, and that our basic rights should not be taken away because of their greed.

GALWAY POW PROTEST PHOTOS

GALWAY POW PROTEST PHOTOS (CONTINUED)