My times in Rossport

Remembering Rossport

2009-02-09T05:57:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked to write about my thoughts on my times in Ireland.

In our ordinary lives struggle is a word used against unseen enemies. We struggle to pay the rent, wake up, get to work, and conquer a hangover. These are the battles we fight, to get through everyday, the things that we endure are vague and bare no higher purpose but to eke out our comfort riddled lives. To go from a life of work and play to Rossport was an education in struggle and cause.

I came from Leeds, at a time when I didn’t see much point in my daily routine. I was working for a corporate film company, the war in Iraq had ebbed into the background and with it popular protest. Complacency and the daily slog had reared it’s head, the summer waned, succumbing to autumn, as the leaves fell around us I was told of my redundancy. I didn’t feel dejected as some others may have been, the job was soulless and poorly paid, full of long hours and infuriating bosses. The house I was living in was the usual Leeds student slum, even though I’d stop being a student years ago. I wasn’t that happy with my life, it seemed achingly pointless, I’d watch TV programmes about climate change, sweat shops, foreign wars, global species extinction, blended with reality TV’s hailing of the moron. Slack jawed illiterate idiots celebrated as ‘down to earth’, emotionally cross-wired celebrities hailed for their slow self-destruction littered my surroundings, essentially pointing out how nothing really amounted to anything substantial.

As I sent out my C.V. to a plethora of third rate agencies, deciding which customer service battery cage to sign up for, I bumped into an old friend of mine. He invited me to attend a talk about what he’d been campaigning for in Ireland during the summer. Dave, was someone I’d befriended whilst working for the CND at Glastonbury festival, he was a funny, monotone, Swedish guy with a love of left wing politics and a strong leaning towards activism. I’d spent many a summer arguing about the actual impact of various activist movements and the motivations behind them. We rambled on about my scepticism of a lot of actions carried out by more forthright protestors, and talked of bridging the gap between the ‘loony left’ as it was so affectionately known and the masses. However, it was at this meeting, in a grotty little, ‘shared space’ that I was introduced to the plight of Rossport and the shocking truth about what was going on In our neighbouring country.

The images of police officers hitting women, dragging old people, and crushing civilians behind fences whilst driving JCB’s through crowds shocked me. I couldn’t believe that this would happen so close to home. It was the motions more reminiscent of the 80’s poll tax riots or the general strike picket breaks, not actions fitting this sleepy rural setting. What I saw really did change my view, and I thought, that at this point of my life, when I had no partner, no job and no ties to think of, now would be as good a time as any to do something worth doing and help some people worth helping. I wasn’t sure how much help I would be, but I really couldn’t just shake my head, say, ‘what a pity’ and get back to watching the Simpsons.
Within a week, I had thrown or given away what I couldn’t fit into a rucksack. This was my life, as far as I was concerned. Everything I owned and needed was here. I’d gathered the last of my cash, bought a, 'sail and rail' ticket to Dublin and set off the next day. The feeling of leaving everything behind, a life full of alphabetically arranged CD’s DVD’s and games, PS2’s and a million useless knick knacks, felt as if a planet of shit had fallen off my back and with it all the stress of modern life.

The next 6 months were as life changing as can be considered. The stereotypes of activists and protest camps did rear their heads, as well as new ones, but myths were also dismissed with great ease. The locals, strong, burly men with sandpaper hands and glistening eyes, their faces weathered by the Atlantic, their backs, hardened by toil in the peat bogs, they didn’t care about global warming, or the trouble and strife of the modern anarchist movement. These weren’t, ‘trouble makers’ or woolly hat clad trust fund children avoiding work, these were people that had lived in a corner of Ireland, that seemed forgotten by the Celtic Tiger that was rampaging through Dublin, raising the wages and beer prices to boot. There was no business boom here, except one, a large ugly boom that snaked through peoples land and settled in protected peat bogs.

But I digress. The cottage we lived in, was something out of a fairy tale, albeit a brothers Grimm one. At first, early autumn days were long enough that the house had light to cook dinner in, before long cooking by candlelight was introduced along with nicked fingers and roaming sliced veg. Aron had returned and I was introduced to this short red bearded grumbler, that saw us as the useless bumbling children that we probably were. With the aid of Eoin, our very own 5 and a 1/2 foot Kerry surfer, he brought the cottage into some liveable form, with solar panels and turbine. It must be said as one of the foreigners in the camp, the Irish put us to shame for organisation and honest toil. Although I didn’t sleep half as much as the incredible sleeping man (Swedish Dave) and dozing house cat Katie T, or regress into the hermit/meat osbsessed lifestyle of our Arsenal Devotee, Carl, I wasn’t as keen on the hard work needed for country life.

I was a soft Englishman all around, wittering on about silly Leeds scene bands, making foul jokes and whinging about carrying a few bags of peat. On my second day I climbed a hill behind the house and nearly passed out from the effort, I’m sure I’d seen a sixty year old man saunter up there earlier. Julie was the only Brit around who seemed capable. This blonde, dreadlocked, bullshit destroyer possessing a strange obsession with glitter kept us all grounded, In times of complete madness.
It does get strange up on that hill in the winter. A dark and cold place, where the cause and reason for it all is nearly caught on a wind that sometimes growls. I’ve never experienced a gale that you can actually hear circle you until I moved into that house, or seen such a beautiful site as the estuary, at low tide at dawn, salmon leaping before blue clouds rolling over distant mountains. I’ve seen that river change colour a hundred times, spotted 7 rainbows on a walk into town, talked to various unimpressed donkeys, been followed by very unnerving cattle and watched a Gardai stall his car In Belmullet whilst trying to intimidate me.

These were a puzzle to me as much as anything, a strange group of people if I ever had seen one. In the city, the police force is faceless, you’d never know a copper by their name, they went unnoticed, ignored. Here everyone knew them, some had been known from youth, like confused bullies who didn’t know how to make friends. They’d say hello, joke with you then kick you in the shins and try to throw you down a ditch. The locals had known them for years, unlike the British concept of the faceless bobby, these Gardai had grown up with a lot of the locals, drank with them and then one day Shell came in and turned them against the farmers and fishermen that lived here and in a way against themselves.

And what of the locals? There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of the hulking incoherent grumble machine that is Lawrence, his wry grin, conspiracy theories, bottomless desire for Guinness with Martin beside him, peeking over the fence at disgruntled security guards whilst Mary pours tea and unwraps a never ending supply of sandwiches. These are just a few of the never ending cycle of locals who turn up when they can to help. It’s hard to mention everyone in this campaign, from Grainne who puts me up in Dublin, normally at no prior notice, Terrence's unending verbal abuse to Bob’s late night fireside chats, about the future about the place of the anarchist movement in modern society, and very disturbing punk songs. Even if I leave you out of this article, I can’t leave you out of my memories, and mind. Because despite my inherit flakeyness as I sit in a grubby room in north London, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Rossport’s hills, salty air, smooth Guinness, ineligible accent, and scuffles.

Day of Action

2009-02-09T05:38:00.002-08:00

Over the thousands of years of mans existence many profound and truthful things have been said by many people about the journey of life. When I think of all of all of these slithers of wisdom passed down through the ages, the words of a Rooster, from Disney's, 'Robin Hood' comes to mind. 'Every Town, has it's ups and downs. Sometimes the ups, outnumber the downs. But not in Nottingham'.
Now I don't know Nottingham very well, and to be truthful I have no real desire to go there, but I do apply that song to my life (and sing it to myself replacing town with Tom, and Nottingham with Tommy Sales). Well Rossport too, like any other factor or period In life has it's ups and downs.

The last few months had seen a gradual decrease not only in our core numbers, but also in the many drifters that help out on whatever travels they are on. The winter months, although strangely mild aren't as hospitable, and seeing that most of our visitors' favoured mode of transportation is hitching, the idea of standing, thumb out in winds that turn rain into needles on your skin for hours on end, isn't very appealing. This is why Kerouac wrote, 'on the road' about his journeys across middle America and not the British midlands. That and he was an American beatnik, in America, and had probably never heard of Wolverhampton, let along harboured any desire to spend it in Lorries next to Tattooed men called Frank wondering what a, 'yam yam' was and waiting to be dropped off at the M1 services. It may have made a more interesting and less narcissistic novel, but I doubt it would have carried the same cultural impact. Anyway, I digress.

What I'm meaning to say is, the camp was at a bit of a low. It was at many stages a bit of a sausage fest, to be painfully honest, at times it was the daddy of all sausage fests, it was the Glastonbury of salami. Five men, alone, in a very dreary house in rural Ireland eating meat, watching DVD's (very poor ones thanks to the combination of Aron's taste and Belmullets range), and dishing out huge barrages of playful abuse towards each other. To all the ladies out there, this is what happens when men are left in each others company, they develop a very strange way of discourse that mainly involves insulting every facet of each others being in order to get a laugh out of anyone, especially themselves. So after the Afri hedge school weekender, which saw another astonishing bedtime conquest by Dave (we have no idea how he does it, honest), we had the most exciting highlight of our time here approach, the 'Day of Action'.

(Bob, relaxing in the camps communal space)

Now a day of action is exactly what it sounds like. It's a day when people form all over the country and even the rest of Europe, pop over and show their solidarity to the cause by taking action. Now this could mean chanting, sit down protests, blocking lorries from entering, or even jumping the fence and stopping work. There's no real plan with this, lets face it, when your working with hundreds of people travelling from all over the place with political views ranging from Nationalism to Anarchism, it's bloody hard to organise. I'd rather take a leaf out of Sun Tzu's book, 'The Art of War' and say it was best to, 'Lure with Bait, Strike with chaos'. Unfortunately we'd run out of bait, so it was just Chaos mainly.

(the view near the office)

The lead up to a day of action is pretty exciting in itself. We had some people joining us for the lead up to it, Jess and Joel, friends of mine from Leeds were taking the good old 24hr trip over to stay for a couple of days. Katie Tee and Rocky, two old camp members had joined us that week armed with spoils from Dunnes stores' skips. An American student, Sarah had come along to study our non-violent action ways and look quizzically at our strange behaviour, Julie was back from Nine Ladies for a bit, and it was fun. Mcgraths was alive again with conversation, argument and playful abuse and the electric anticipation of the Friday was creeping into everyone.

We had a fair bit of preparation to do for the day, food had to be bought. The chiefs house, a shell of a place set next to a river in boggy land, had to be made hospitable, bedding and places for everyone needed to be secured and a vague meeting was held about what was going to happen. Like I've said before, it's a hard one to organise at the best of times. This time for example saw the majority of people coming down for between 12 and 4am, by then most people are knackered and want bed. Add to that the plan to block workers at 6am, and well, there's not much point in a full scale briefing with wall charts and maps.

(Eoin, carrying supplies to the Chief's house)

We basically got our shit together, packed a day bag, I charged the batteries, got the blank tapes together for the camera, and got an early night. Although to be honest I couldn't really sleep, I don't normally get this excited. But it shits on Christmas.

It's hard to explain to your friends how cold the mornings are when you haven't got central heating. It's not like when you wake up when the heating's off in your house. This house has never had central heating, any warm air that was in this place has flown the coup a long time before I turned up, it's colder than the ice queen's naughty bits. I can normally cope with it, my dad in his very own strange way of bloody mindedness and inability to understand that the universe goes on when he's not in the room never let me put the central heating on when he wasn't home. Now i can deal with cold temperatures, it's not weird to be chatting away and then notice that everyone in the room can see their breath, it's just a way of re-setting yourself.

However, it's hard to explain that to your poor friend who came out to visit and is going into shock becuase the plans for the action changed when you weren't in the room has got him up at 5am to block workers from getting into the refinery. No, quite expectantly if this happens you get a very grumpy Joel who is shivering so hard that he may vibrate into another plane of existence.
After we load up with layers, and camera's, tapes, flashlights, hats and our very dulled wits, we head off to our objective.

There are two major and one minor entrance's to the gas refinery. The main entrance is reinforced for lorries and cargo, the third gate is for workers to enter. The workers normally start getting in around 6am, the rest start coming in from 8. On a normal day there's a steady flow of lorries taking in all manor of raw materials, normally there's about three cop cars full of guarda that patrol the area. On a good day, when you catch them offguard, you can stop the traffic for 30 mins, maybe an hour. Then they drag you off.

On this day there were a couple of hundred protestors, and about three hundred guardai. It was this wall of cops that greeted us at 6am. Linked arm in arm they blocked the road, seperating us from the other groups. It was just us and some people from cork. We moved forward and stood face to face, banners flew, and from the depths of our group came, the war of the worlds anthem, 'da da daaa, da da daaa'. I nearly pissed my pants with laughter. Trying to get through a thick wall of coppers is, well like talking to a brick wall, or coppers. Bloody useless. One or two of us broke through, only to be carried back and neatly dropped off (dave for one).A few people get the boot stuck into them by the cops. One very irritating one tries to throw me into a very nasty ditch but instead falls arse over tit. I point out that slippery smart shoes may not be the wisest of footwear and her takes a swing at me. I also point out that he's not very good at taking swings at people, this seems to irk him. As our pals in arms blocked the other road they were picked off one by one by the masses of pigs and thrown into our enclosure. We were stuck, and bored to boot, so we headed back towards the workers gate.

The worksite has two main fences. The main perimeter is a 6 foot high sheer metal sucker that is easily scaled, the inner fence is a little taller with sharp spikes all along it, it's nothing that any self respecting kid wouldn't climb to get at their football, but when you've got five very stupid and angry security guards on the other side, pulling, pushing and genrally beign arseholes it's a different story.

We get to the gate and after a little game of cat and mouse scale it. On the other side a group of about ten guards are waiting for us. There's a small scuffle, they form a very amusing line and we break through. At the start i'd say there was about 20 of us over the outer fence, now there's about 13 of us. We're a ragtag bunch of stragglers from other groups. Me and Dave are from the camp, Auntie G and a few others from Dublin, some from Cork and a tall frenchman with a camera who no-one knows. We head for the fence, but are greeted by a couple of lads from belfast and the woodsman that is Finbar.

Finbar has the most amazing ability of popping up out of nowhere. One minute you think that you're all alone, scrabbling around in bog and scrub and all manner of shit and this weapon x looking irishman in a neatly tucked in lumberjack shirt and strangely tight ripped jeans will come striding out of the bushes, normally with about 8 security guards bumbling behind him. At every action i've always marvelled at his ability to outrun every guard, i know they're not the fittest of people, after hours of tussling being dragged and the big fuck off coats i insist on wearing i'm a regular melting man by noon. Finbar is just this bouncing gazelle dipping and ducking out of reach. Needless to say it really pisses them off.

So we're stuck between the fences, wandering around on spongey bog and with not a clue what we're doing. Then the discussions begin. Groups of protestors aren't very good at organisation. When sun tzu wrote, 'the art of war', he laid pen to paper and stated, 'lure with bait, strike with chaos', well there's only so much chaos an attack can have before it just ends up as a bunch of dim lefties wandering around debating very slowly about what the agenda is whilst the cops slowly surround them. And that's precisely what happened.

It takes a while for the gardai to totally remove you from a refinary, or anywhere. The disorganised mess can be your greatest ally. The local law enforcement are trained to a rigid decree of procedures, that were devised before direct action came to these shores. Add the fact that there's camera's floating about, alot of the time they seem more comfused than we do.

Finbar kept a great deal of them busy in the fields, prancing and galloping around the security guardsducking in and out of bushes, appearing and dissapearing in the undergrowth to everyones amusement. Some of us were singled out and dragged off into vans, arrested or held without charge and released. Mostly they formed lines and slowly pushed you out of the gates whilst whispering obscenities into your ear, kicking the back of your knees all the way to the gate.

Outside we saw the other side to the action. The side that was seen by the media. dozens of protester were lined up against a ditch by a strong line of Gardai. All morining they'd been blocking trucks, rotating in sitting blockades in the centre of the road, kicked, punched, and manhandled. One had his glasses smashed, many were winded and had been stamped on, they had blocked the lorries for a while until finally the superior numbers and violence had won them over. Everyone was exhuasted and elated, slightly delirious from the events, joking, drinking tea and eating sandwiches. The Guardai still japed and insulted us, but it was all too amusing, we had done something, that was all that was needed. To do something, to show solidarity against adversity, that was all that truly matters. Ignorance and apathy is the biggest weapon they have, and without it things happen, change occurs and this world needs change.

Action Force O.A.P

2009-02-09T05:38:00.001-08:00

In Ireland the largest landowner is Coilte, it's a semi-public company that owns most of the Irish forests and rural land. It's basically the Irish forestry commission. Now any work or major events that take place concerning the land are supposed to involve the consultation of local residents, making the local people shareholders in this commonage, or common land.

The Bellanaboy Gas refinery used to be part of this land, but was sold off to Shell at a massively slashed price without an consultation. Along with this there is a long stretch of land behind the terminal where the pipeline is supposed to be laid. A boardwalk has already been placed on the bogland in preperation, despite it being ruled illegal and asked by the courts to be removed.

(The start of our trip)

In my last mail, I told of how we had to halt drilling on S.A.C land, as to enforce Eu laws in the face of the police themselves, who were only concerned with the well being of a multi-national corporation. Well, on this sunny day it looked like we had to take it apon ourselves to make sure that work was stopped again.

The locals here are a motley crew. The young people of the area are estranged from society, those that can leave to greener pastures, University or Dublin where the winter months aren't as bleak, the rain isn't horizontal and the jobs aren't mainly fishing and farming generally do. There's no real place in the modern world for this lifestyle, most people would prefer to have plasma screen T.V's than beautiful unspoilt surroundings. I can't blame a lot of the kids, I'm a city boy and even though i grew up a stones throw from London in a town of city size with pubs and thousands of inhabitants, I still ran away to Leeds becuase I felt clasutrophobic. We're fed information constantly on the accessability of the world, all its wealth and wonders within a budget flight and a cheap hostels' grasp. I can fully sympathise why the youth of Mayo leave. 40 percent unemployment isn't the biggest incentive, nor the solitary nightclub, or the horrifically bleak amount of totty.

(With the sun in our eyes and smiles on our lips, it's a good day out for all)

So the we find ourselves standing side by side with men who wear the years on their face, leathery weather worn visages, like the craggy cliffs that border the bay. These are proper working men, with gruff thick Irish accents that blur words together and throw away troublesome consonants altogether. Flat caps litter the horizon of protests, oilskins are daily wear here, the local priests wrote a letter of condemnation towards the pipeline recently and it was put up everywhere, carrying the heavy weight of a parents words. It's a bit Father Ted at times but then again, it's a nice comfy chair of friendly faces that you can't help but smile at.

So when we set off through the bogland, my DC skater trainers dutifully absorb all the aailable moisture to them, with a content squlching sound, flooding my feet with foul smelling bogwater, making the lads laugh. Lawrence, a hulking silver haired, gambling, boozing, farmer, mutters something about me being a silly cunt, I tell him that he better watch his back and a lopsided grin of unmeaserable mischief crawls accross his face. It's like the A-team had come out of retirement to show the kids how its done.

(The boys are back in town)

There's only three members of the solidarity camp out in the thirteen strong party. We clamber through the thicket and emerge at the back of the boardwalk, catch our breath and continue along it, bordered by long red grass and shiny black peat. Silver dead wood litters the surroundings with weak pine trees beyond that listlessly leaning on each other in the damp oily soil. Up ahead stands a red drilling rig, encased in a flimsy fence guarded by four security guards. When we approach the work halts, a towering, English security guard from the previous day, tells us we're trespassing, amongst other things we tell him it's common land.

(Vince consulting with Jimmy, a local Garda)

The stand off doesn't last long, we get bored and two of us try to slip under the fence to get to the machine, the guards pounce on them, grabbing legs, ramming them up against he fence. Well, that's when it goes a bit mad. The locals leap into action, pulling back the guards, in the insueing panic a camp member tries to jump the fence but is shocked to see it fall apart in his hands. Locals pour through the gap wrenching and bending the gate to the ground, curses bounce about, and guards are forced back as Martin, casually scales the drill making settling comfortably at the top. It's stalemate again, and time crawls by. Willy Corduff, one of the Rossport 5, rattles off to the Gardai who turn up moments later. They seem confused about the legality of the tresspass and dismayed at the turn of events, so after a while and after a lot of berating they give in, agreeing to remove the rig from the site.

(Martin rests with style in the arms of a drilling rig)

Martin comes down, the rig packs up and we follow it to the gates where it stops. Willy isn't pleased with this, the agreement was to have the rig off the site, the commanding officer disagree's and once again we reach a stand off. The authorities know that they can't force us to leave. Unlike the refinery site, the Leanamor area is only vaguely enclosed with a poor fence, either side is a massive and thick wood, any threat and we could slip into there and return at our leisure, then there's the issue of if we are actually trespassing. The superintendent, removes his hat, rubs his thinning scalp and shakes his head.

Ten minutes later the sandwiches arrive. That's the most amusing thing about this protest movement, whatever happens, at the end of everything there's someone holding a tray of sandwiches and a cup of tea for you, or scones, or soda bread, or jaffa cakes. It's as if your nan came out with the anarchists picnic.

I don't knock it, it's remarkably civilised, bloody tasy and really irritates the garda. They can see that we're resigned to stay on site, and as they set up the lighting rig against a setting sun, our soup turns up. It's a cold night and we get bored, so we're entertained by locking ourselves in the security portacabin for a bit and running up and down. A massive crowd gathers at the fence, some locals wander in and out of the gate, the security huddle in the corner. The fencing left on the boardwalk out of sight, encounters a freak localised storm that somehow wrecks it and re-distributes a lot of left pipes, we can't figure it out. Finally at 10pm we dissapear into the night with sleeping bags and tents.

Come 5am we turn up, the rising sun at our backs and a wry smile on our faces. The security look haggered, confused and underpaid. We give them a wave, hop the fence and walk to the trailer outside the refinary for tea and scones. They didn't drill that day either.

Just another days work.
Last friday there was a big protest.
That's another story

I might tell you it someday.

If you ask me nicely.

Tommy2shoes...

What to do when Shell drill your SAC

2009-02-09T05:36:00.002-08:00

06 Nov 2007

There are certain things about the rules that exist here in Rossport and the surrounding area. Since i've arrived i've found that there seems to be one set of rules for the locals and one for Shell. When Shell originally wanted to place a pipeline through peoples land, past their front doors and up into national parkland they were turned down. When the surveyors were chased off the farmers land, the farmers were jailed for 94 days for being in comtempt of court, basically for not letting Shell have their land. The Garda actively ordered a JCB digger to drive through a crowd trying to stop trespassing of Shell workers even with a legal injunction.

This said, whenever we set foot on Shell's land, land bought from the publically owned parks department (coillte) we're dragged off by the scruff of our necks. The same is to be said about last week. Two months ago a court order gave the solidarity camp, a network of tents around a central wooden structure to be removed from an S.A.C or Special area of conservation, due to the 'irreperable damage' that it caused. Last week RPS, under the instruction of Shell were drilling bore holes and setting wrought iron posts in concrete.

(John Monaghan points out the Illegal road to the SAC)

When we arrived to stop this happening, the police turned up. We pointed out that RPS' actions were illegal under EU law, the Garda ignored us. We were told that he himself Supt. Gilligan, couldn't stop Shell. That all his powers were concerned with trespassing, and work would go on. This is what we deal with every day, every day we face a complete mockery of justice and the legal system.

As a child my mum constantly reminded me that 'life's not fair', this always perplexed me. I'd think with the clarity of childlike naivity, 'if people make up the world and the majority of the worlds problems, then surely we could make life fair'. It always seemed to me to be a bit of a cop out, like the saying, 'I'm only human'. As if being human is a cosmic loophole, last time i checked i was human. Alright, if you're demanding that I should fly to the moon on the back of a mauve piggy bank, or wrestle an alligator with my earlobes, I might use 'I'm only human' as a legitimate excuse. It's when it gets used as a get out of jail card, when someone can't be bothered, or is selfish, or is any of the many negative factors of the human psyche. When the phrase, 'i'm only human' is used here it shoud really be replaced with, 'I'm a selfish twat', or ' I'm not a nice person' or 'please stick a sharp stick into my genetalia becuase I don't deserve to breed'. 'It's not fair' shouldn't be used as a get out clause, but a call to arms. A statement that should feed a furnace of anger in you, make you stand up and do something, not roll your eyes and flick over to nuts tv but grab a large stick and poke it into the general crotch area of the unfair prick who sparks this emotion.

So, when Supt. Gilligan tells us that we WILL be moved in five minutes time, that's the moment when i put my hand out to my fellow camper and bunk him over the fence, so like a spider monkey he runs up the side of the drill and plants himself on the top, our little lookout, searching for the community liason officer, that we've been looking for over the last 3 weeks. The cops are their normal keystone comedy selves, scuffling and slipping in the mud, shiny soft leather shoes skidding with comical glee. Eoin (pronounced Owen) swings his little legs like a school child on a stool as he is negotiated with. I say negotiate, i mean, asked politly and somewhat desperately to come down. We get the tea and biscuits in, and chat about our day.

(our little spider monkey)

A grand forty five minutes later, after much arguing, pleading and hassling, the crew finally agreed to pack up, if our little spider monkey descended, and he did, so they packed up and left.They have been in trouble for drilling on the S.A.C. Oh they were going to dig elsewhere, in Leana mor, coillte land to be precise, national parkland that is handed over by the council happily to Shell, but what happened there, i'll tell you next time.

As for Eoin, our little drill rig running spiderman.

He's only human.

Check the video footage.

return tothe emerald isle

2009-02-09T05:36:00.001-08:00

My return journey to Ireland was a pale comparison to my trip to Leeds. When I took it apon myself to ramble back to blighty, I also took the initiative to steal 4 bottles of good red wine, which I drank with vigour, only taking the odd break to either piss or mumble nonsense at my poor travelling companion, whom I'd conned into travelling friendship before the demise of my second bottle. The end result was when I finally arrived in the north, I was a whirling dervish of verbal confusion and physical contradiction. My arms and legs, devoid of orchestrated movement, my mind slipping in and out of lucidity, and everything I said was complete bollocks.

Sadly, due to the fact that I had my entire life, crammed into an ungainly rucksack strapped to my back and causing me to sweat, gasp and stagger without the aid of booze, even my LS6 renowned five finger discount abilities, couldn't mask my conspicuous personage. In other words, I stood out like a twelve inch erection in a girls changing room. Not totally unwanted, but easy to spot.

So, I took my twenty hour slog, through England, Wales and finally into Ireland with no booze, just two stolen sarnies, my book (Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh) a rucksack as heavy as Jupiter and myself.

Of course I'd missed the morning train, due to my inherit disorganisation, and total devotion to my duvet, so I had to wait around for two hours in town. After this it was pretty plain sailing, I spent most of it asleep, and I found it funny as, at one point I was reading about school life in northern wales as I shared a train with a group of school children going through northern Wales. I listened to the 10 year old girls explain to each other that they were Goths because they owned a pencil case and a skirt with skulls on, watching them think of strange and transparent excuses to talk to blonde haired dopey boys, as the lads behind me compare fantasy football teams.

The ferry trip was a bit of a drag, I'd planned to half inch a bottle of Jamesons form the ferry shop, unfortunately the six foot security guard had me pegged from the minute I walked in. I had to take a tactical retreat, and was forced to watch the new Mr. bean film for entertainment. I don't think I need to tell you this, but for anyone who hasn't guessed. It's shit.

(Dublin)

I arrived in Dublin having missed my train. There's only two a day to Ballina, so I was bound to have missed it. I rang the Dublin contigent of Shell to Sea, Grainne and Keever, then after a landslide of directions, which I promptly forgot, I followed my crooked nose to their house, successfully backtracking from the last time I was there. I was pretty fucking pleased with myself I can tell you. The girls were excellent hosts, supplying a lake of tea, smiles and somewhere to sleep. you couldn't ask for more.

I missed the morning train again, bunked the tram fair and got to hueston station with an hour to wait. I was dangerously close to finishing my book, and had to resort to nicking, 'I am legend' from the Station's bookstore. I pretty much devoured it on the train, a tale about the last man on earth, surrounded by a world of zombie/vampires. It all seemed rather believable, watching the suited commuters blankly shuffle about to a fro, briefly stopping to purchase, caffeine free, orange mocha choca chino frappe's or whatever designer label drink has been recommended in last Sunday's lifestyle supplement. I munched on my Cornish pasty and read.

Four hours later I was being bounced around the back of the McGrath's bus on my way to the solidarity camp. I was suffering multiple anal fractures from the pseudo-road that was more like an endurance test than a fareway. Next time I'm sitting closer to the front, I swear. I arrive to a dark, electricity and friend free house, fall over , walk into a door, light a candle, talk to myself about my situation, before heading down to the camp on the beach, where I'm greeted with a gruff insult and get down to making dinner.

Pretty uneventful.
But that was just a journey.
After that it get's very interesting.

Currently reading :
Complicity
By Iain Banks
Release date: 29 October, 2002