Our Goldman Winner

by Cable Sun May 06, 2007 13:48

Respect & good wishes to all the Rossport 5 & Brid McGarry & their families & supporters - when you consider the trouble & expense they've been caused, shouldn't they be getting a decent compensation from Shell & the Gov't? The Mayo people have a lot to be proud of in their resistance to bullying & intimidation from a huge multinational & from "their own" Government.
I'm looking forward to visiting Rossport & Bellanaboy again soon; the people there are an inspiration.

by Jack Doyle Mon May 14, 2007 18:33 jackdoyle at yahoo dot co dot uk

Well done to Willie and Mary. You will be glad to hear that Enda Kenny got an cold reception in Cork last week . Maybe he could take a few lessons from Willie the Great !
I hope to get up to Mayo within the next few weeks with some fellow travellers. We havent gone away you know ! Any talk of another national protest day?

by jj cool Wed May 16, 2007 12:42

Can someone throw some light on the following please:

Why was Willie corduff the sole recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize?

Why has Dr Gravan & Dr Cowley distanced them self’s from the campaign?

What has happened to Maura Harrington?

Why has J Monaghan taken over as spokesperson of the campaign?

Why are there little or no protestors at Ballinaboy each morning?

Why is it that the most ardent activists now appear to come from Dublin?

Have the locals lost control of the campaign

by MacE Wed May 16, 2007 14:54

JJ:

i. The Goldman Environmental Prize can only be awarded to an individual. Corduff was the one nominated. Tellingly, of the six winners, he was the only one not accompanied by a representative of his government.

ii. I don't believe they have.

iii. Maura got pulled from her van violently by the guards, after they smashed all her windows.

iv. Why not?

v. "Little protestors"? Whether the protestors are big people or small is surely a non-issue, what matters is their determination.

vi. Shell to Sea have ardent activists from everywhere. If you notice the ones from Dublin more, it may be because some of them are so damnably attractive. Or maybe just that an awful lot more people happen to live in Dublin than Erris.

vii. No. Although for the moment, they have lost control of what goes on in their area vis-a-vis immense construction projects. But hopefully that will be rectified soon.

by Frankie - fgth Wed May 16, 2007 19:17

Willie Says ………

"Shell will tolerate people even getting killed if necessary to get this project done"

"Our expectations were not that high, we knew what we were up against, but instead of moving forward, I had the feeling when I left the meeting that things had actually gone backwards; I felt we were dealing with bullies up there on the stage ".

"harassing and intimidating opponents".

"The aim was to frighten her when I had gone away",

"if this project is to go ahead as it is, then Shell will have more blood on its hands in Mayo. We are not giving up and if any of you think we should give up and let Shell drive us out of our homes, that's okay, but I want you all to know what Shell are doing to pay you your shares".

"I am very lucky to be here because with the reputation of Shell I should not be here. They only jailed me for 94 days for asking questions".

“Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops Shell Cops na na na na na"

Dats all Folks,

More from willie soon.

by fairness Wed May 16, 2007 19:31

Even though the prize is given to a indivudal, that dosent prevent willie from sharing the money with his four partners.
I think he should share the prize or give it to charity

by Jack Doyle Wed May 16, 2007 22:33 jackdoyle at yahoo dot co dot uk

There are only a few die hards left. But they will inspire many. Willie Coduff is the Mandella of our generation. John Monaghan is our hope for the future. Rock on Rossport !

by Rob - supp Thu May 17, 2007 10:22 Mayo

John monaghan is the man, if john had of been allowed to take hold of the campaign from the start we would not be protesting anymore.John would have made sure that shell and its side kcks would have been ejected from the area long long ago.
John repersents the true spirit of S2S, he is not clammering about all the time looking for media bites , john leads from the front , this country used to be full of men like john, men who stood up and fought for change ,who fought for the man on the ground , who fought fro rightnessious.
John monaghan should run for public office, the people of north mayo can not thank you enough john,

by brother - s2s Thu May 17, 2007 16:03 shelltosearossport at gmail dot com rossport

well said rob, with john leading the charge from the front we will soon win this outright

by Tara - . Thu May 17, 2007 20:52

93 thousand euro could go a long way to helping some of the people in nigeria whos lives have been destroyed by shell, Maybe willie and a few others could fly out there and help some of the nigerian activists ?

by Frankie - FGTR Mon May 21, 2007 17:29

We'd never objected to anything in our whole lives,"

"I'd love to see this done properly, our natural resources gained back, in hopes that they would do some good for our country and our community,"
It's a beautiful place, a beautiful place to live. It's a quiet, unspoiled community, with all the old traditions -- we milk cows, feed hens and ducks -- and we have clean air and clean water. I've been farming with my father all my life -- he passed away just two years ago -- and my sons are doing it now, and I have a grandson and a granddaughter, so there's a fourth generation there. It's a way of life, a way of life that Shell is working on taking away from us.

When they started to come to the area to drill trial holes -- we knew nothing about it before then. We just never expected something that big to come to our little community. The pipeline was a high-pressure gas pipeline -- and as far as we have learned, it was never done in the world before, not on land. This was raw gas, in from the well, and they were treating it on land, in the middle of a small community, one with valuable estuaries and plantations and all that type of thing. This area is protected [by the European Union] and we just couldn't imagine that this project would be allowed to happen. We thought, "Where are the protection agencies now? How come they're not stopping this?"
No, they wouldn't listen to our opinion. That was the hardest part. We tried to explain to them, at the beginning, that we could not allow this to happen because it was going to finish our whole community.
We'd done research into this -- we weren't used to this type of work, and we had no money for it -- and we found that the oil and gas that was found on our coast, on the Irish coast, had been sold off by the Irish government for absolutely nothing. They gave it away. So we knew that there were going to be no benefits here for anyone in our community, that all we would get was the pollution and the destruction and all that type of thing. When we heard that, we said we have to fight this.

At the moment in Ireland our nurses are out on strike -- on the streets, the poor things, marching on the streets -- looking for higher wages. I mean, if [oil and gas development] were done right they wouldn't have to be out there. The country could afford to pay them their wages and let them do what they're good at doing.

When Shell came on our land in 2005 -- our own holdings of land, which are very, very small -- they were pegging it to survey for the high-pressure pipeline. I went to them and told them they were trespassing, and they said, "No, Willie, we're not, we have got the authority to come in here," and I said, "Well, I want to see it. Would you show it to me?" They said "No, we're not obliged to show it to you." I said, "I have to see something." So they left for that day.
They came back on the land a few days after that, and we did the same thing. So we were brought to court in April of 2005, and [Shell] got out an injunction against us, saying that we couldn't interfere with them doing anything on our property. The judge told us that if we interfered with Shell again, we'd be jailed.

They came on our land again in June, and we stopped them again, so we were brought to court again and given an indefinite sentence. When the judge gave the sentence, he said to Micheál O'Seighin -- a teacher, one of the men who was jailed with me -- he asked Micheál, "Have you got a family home? Have you got a family car?" and Micheál said yes. "I'll take all that off ye," he said. "I'll fine ye hundreds of thousands of Euros, and I'll make sure that you pay it, and I'll lock up every farmer in [County] Mayo if I have to."
Well, it was scary. But when the judge said, "Go out and think about it," we didn't even leave the courtroom. So we were jailed.

We knew we were going to lose everything we had. It wasn't a lot, but it was what was handed down to us, so it was an old tradition. And we loved where we lived.
There were times you'd break down and get emotional about it, and say "Oh, God, what's going to happen to us?" like when we were put to jail, which was an awful shock to our system. When you've kept quiet and peaceful and respected the law, it felt terrible for that to be done to you. But when we were put to jail, the whole community came out to support us. People came from Dublin, Cork, everywhere to rally behind us -- they had huge demonstrations. So that gave us strength.
And the prisoners were very nice to us when they knew why we were there. We were in there with murderers, you know, and God help us, a whole lot of young people that the system had let down. They would come up to us and ask, "What are you in for?" and we'd say, "Well, you know, to protect our place, our little farms," and they used to laugh. "Oh, no, lads, don't tell me that!" They didn't believe us. But then when they saw it on the television, they really respected us.

When Shell lifted the injunction in September and let us out, thousands of people in Dublin marched for us, and people were coming up to us and saying, "Don't give up, lads, we're behind you." So we've just gotten stronger, and we've upped our campaign.

It was a complete shock. I thought "Jesus, why me?" The government has painted a really bad picture of us -- all they had ever told us was, "Oh, go home and have sense, you're stopping progress, and keeping people out of jobs." So it's just been a complete shock -- I just don't realize yet what I have got.
To tell you the truth, I haven't even thought much about it. We were never used to money, we never had money. It'll help the campaign and it'll help the whole thing, but in the excitement of all this, I haven't even thought about it.