The West's Awake: The Battle Of Rossport

On June 29, five residents of Rossport, Co. Mayo were sent to jail for opposing Shell’s attempts to lay a high pressure gas pipeline within 70 metres of their homes.
As a result, they have been in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin, for over four weeks now. Since the decision of the High Court to jail them for contempt, many in Ireland have rallied to support the men and their families and friends, in their battle against the giant multi-national. Thousands marched in support in Mayo and Dublin, while Shell and Statoil garages have been picketed, blockaded and boycotted.
So what the hell is going on? Why have five ordinary, decent men landed in prison? We tried to talk to the Rossport Five – Micheál O Seighin, Brendan Philbin, Willie Corduff, Philip McGrath, Vincent McGrath – but journalists are not allowed into the prison to speak with them. Instead, we caught up with the daughters of two of the jailed men – who had their own story to tell.
Máire McGrath is the daughter of Vincent McGrath, one of the Rossport Five. She is 21 and about to enter her final year in law at UCD. Having risen at 3.30 am for the five hour journey from Mayo to see her dad in prison, she’s buzzing with information about the saga when we meet.
“They’re in good form,” she explains. “When I was in with them today, they said that even if it took until October they will stick it out. All five of them are very determined.
“Our house is closest to the pipeline, less than 70 metres from it,” she adds. “It’s just too dangerous to have that run by the house. Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, said that a safety zone of at least 50
metres is to be established around the sub-sea pipes to protect the fish – but it’s okay to put the pipe right beside houses? It doesn’t make sense.”
From the start, there was something suspicious about what was going on, she says. It just took a while for it to come to light.
“My Dad took an interest in the proposed gas refinery for Ballanaboy,” McGrath says. “He realised how dangerous the whole thing was.
“He then found that others felt exactly the same. They tried to get in contact with government officials – but they all say that it falls outside their remit. No government agency is taking responsibility for all of this.”
She continues: “It’s kinda crazy when you think about it, because we didn’t elect Shell – we elected the government to look after us. The government is just bowing to the multinationals and Ireland is getting nothing out of it. The gas should be making money for the people of this country, instead of for Shell.”
Despite the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil stance of the cabinet, McGrath remains upbeat about the support the five have received.
“There’s been huge support from people around the country,” she says. “It’s really kept the guys’ morale up inside. They have received a huge amount of letters. It’s been fantastic.”
Bríd Ni Seighín is a teacher in Rossport and daughter of Micheál Ó Seighín, one of the five. She explains the impact the events of the past few weeks have had on the men and their families.
“The weeks in jail have been very difficult for them,” she says. “The men are used to the freedom of the countryside. It’s been very difficult for the families too. We haven’t been able to get on with our lives. The wives and children are looking after the farms now.”
She adds: “But we feel very encouraged because at last people are beginning to understand what the issue is about. There has been great support from the neighbours and locals, helping out with the turf and the hay.
“Before now, many farmers had signed the land over. People in Erris thought the project would bring in employment. But people were misinformed and no one in the area was told how dangerous the pipeline would be.
“It was only when we researched it we realised it was not just an ordinary gas line. Since the jailing, things have turned around. People thought ‘If the five are willing to go to jail, there must be something wrong’. And they’re right.”
Shell E&P (a company involving Shell, Statoil and Marathon) was given the rights by the Irish government to explore the Corrib gas field off the coast of Mayo. The decision was made by Ray Burke during his tenure as the minister in charge of natural resources.
Shell plans to lay a high-pressure pipeline, linking an off-shore terminal in the Corrib gas field to a refinery at Bellanaboy, nine kilometres inland.
Coming straight from the well, the gas in the Shell pipeline will be raw and untreated.
An onshore pipeline like this has no precedent anywhere in Ireland or, indeed, in Europe – normally gas is processed at sea, but, by processing the gas onshore, Shell will save millions in capital and operating costs.
In 2004, 21 people died in a gas pipeline explosion in Belgium. In August 2002, 12 died in New Mexico, when an underground natural gas pipeline ruptured. In light of these incidents, both McGrath and Ni Seighín said that a key motivation of the five jailed men was the health and safety of their families.
“The proposed pipeline will bring gas from out in the sea to the refinery,” Ni Seighín explains. “The pipe comes to land less than 70 metres from houses in the village of Rossport. The route passes only 70 metres from where I live. The pipeline will be carrying unrefined ‘raw’ gas, at very high pressures.
“This type of pipe has never been brought on land before. If anything happens we will have no chance.”
So how did it come to pass that a private company can have people put in jail for refusing to allow that company access to their land?
Historically, that right was confined to the State through Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO).
“The government introduced legislation in 2002 to allow a private company take out CPOs,” Ni Seighín explains.
“It’s never been used before now. Also, there was no planning process for the pipeline. It is exempt from the normal planning process and only needs consent from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.”
The Rossport Five claim that Shell doesn’t have the official permission (referred to as ‘consents’) to start work on the pipeline.
Now it seems that the Minister for Communications belatedly agrees and he has written to Shell to that effect.
“Shell and their workers tried a few times to get access to the land,” McGrath explains. “But we would stop them and say that they didn’t have the proper consent. Each time they would try different fields and we’d call each other and say ‘get to that field, Shell are back again’.”
One day McGrath was at home alone and saw Shell workers trying to get into the field. There were around 10 of them. With them were two Gardai.
“I went out and only Philip McGrath and his wife Maureen were there, standing on their own at the entrance to the field,” she continues. “The 10 Shell guys were trying to intimidate them, saying, ‘are you aware that there is an injunction against you?’”.
Philip responded that he was aware but he still couldn’t let them in because they didn’t have the consent and the injunction was wrong. The pipeline was too dangerous to let through the land.
“He said he didn’t mind if they used the injunction, they could arrest him anyway. His life was not worth living there if the pipe was there. Then the Shell people tried to get into another field but by that time we had got back up. We live in the middle of nowhere and it takes ages to get people together! We went through the same ordeal a few times. When Shell got sick of going away, that’s when they got the injunction even though they still didn’t have the right consents.
She adds: “Each time they got the gardai to take the names of whoever was in the fields. Shell must have gone through the names and decided to pick out for an injunction whoever they saw as the most threatening to their interests. They must have picked out the five people who they felt were coming out the most strongly – the people they thought it would be to their advantage to get rid of.
“So the five had to appear in court and they refused to obey the injunction and were put in jail for contempt of court.”
Did they expect to have to go to jail?
“I think they naively thought if they went to court and put all issues before the judge, he would see how wrong it was – but the judge refused to listen to the issues. The judge was more interested in the fact that they had broken the injunction than the reason why it was broken.
“The five are taking the law into their own hands because the law is not protecting them,” she argues. “They don’t have a choice, they have to protect themselves. Dad is an inspiration. I am very proud of him, that he is putting himself through this for us.”
The Nigerian government hanged nine environmental activists in 1995 for speaking out against Shell’s intimidation and destruction of their lands. Máire McGrath asked a hard question about this.
“There are parallels with Shell in Nigeria,” she says. “Nigeria used the severest sentence in their law (hanging) against those who opposed Shell there. Our government has used its strongest form of punishment – jailing – against my father and the others who have opposed Shell here. Would they have been hanged if that was our severest form of punishment?”
Who benefits from Ireland’s natural resources? In 1992, Bertie Ahern introduced new measures that meant oil and gas exploration companies pay a mere 25% tax. This is the lowest in the world. Tax on oil profits in Norway is 78%! Shell will have 100% control over whatever gas is discovered and will pay no royalties.
Jerry Cowley, Independent TD for Mayo has been supporting the Rossport Five from the start. He says: “We should ensure, like Norway, that it is the public which benefits from exploration of natural resources. Here, our government has written it off. The politicians are cowing to the corporations. Fine Gael and others are keeping in with the corporate sector. But they can’t serve two masters. It has to be the people or the corporations. I serve the people’s interests first.
He continues: “The guys are only defending their rights. The men are heroes. This will be resolved by the pipe going out to sea and in no other way.”
For her part, Máire McGrath is scathing about the way in which the political establishment has responded to the issue raised by the Rossport Five.
“The country is run in the interests of the profit of multinationals not the ordinary people,” she says. “Politicians have ignored us. Enda Kenny is not doing his job as leader of the opposition, as a possible Taoiseach. He should be forcing the government to act in relation to this – but he’s just doing nothing. FG don’t stand for anything now and the Labour Party are gone soft.
“We have to keep the pressure up and the campaign going. It’s not going to end until Shell goes off-shore.
"I was never really following anything politically before – I was just trying to get through my course. Now I’ve seen how people have come from all over Ireland to support us, even though they don’t know us. So I’d encourage everyone to get informed, find out about the issues and get active."