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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— village November - December 2009
Rossport
’ and writers enjoyed the
same clout in politics as they do with the general
public, the Corrib Gas project would have been
halted long ago. At a fundraiser in June, as his
latest album enjoyed a second week at the top of
the charts, Christy Moore played, while Booker
prize winner Anne Enright read from her work
and Colm Tóibín, top of the fiction charts with
Brooklyn, sent a message of support. Meanwhile
in Galway, the launch of the Volvo Ocean Race
in May saw Shell to Sea (SS) protestors wave a
banner as Kila played on the Topaz stage (Topaz
purchased the network of garages previously
owned by Shell). As security stepped in to remove
the banner, a member of Kila took it from the
crowd and hung it on stage, to generous applause.
A few moments later, singer Rónan Ó Snodaigh
took off his shirt to reveal a home-made SS
T-shirt. In Belmullet, Co Mayo, a succession of
poets and singers publicly denounced Shell’s
efforts to sponsor artistic events. Tommy
Tiernan, playing to a full house in September,
observed that Shell knew “which holes to oil” to
get their project through and sent a message of
support to the “[Pat] O’Donnell clan”.
When Seamus Heaney declared his public
support for the Lisbon treaty in June, the news
was greeted as a significant breakthrough for
the Yes side. “In a rare and moving intervention”,
wrote Guardian columnist Timothy Garton
Ash, “Ireland’s greatest living poet has come out
plainly for a yes to the Lisbon Treaty and raised
the whole debate to a different level”. Heaney had
previously spoken out in support of the people
of Erris, congratulating Willie Corduff and the
Rossport Five on winning the Goldman Prize (the
US-based Nobel for the Environment), acknowl-
edging his pride “when five ‘green’ men stood
their ground”. The media ignored that interven-
tion which ran contrary to the needs of Ireland’s
professional political class, distant strangers to
the Republic of Conscience. This cultural domi-
nance is not reflected across the social spectrum
as the mainstream media have played a key role
in portraying the campaign as the work of mal-
contents who prefer protest to proposal.
Ten years ago, locals in Erris began asking
questions about a gas project, a process which
has led them to question the economic model, the
political system and the very notion of belong-
ing and identity in contemporary Ireland. As
the economic and political crisis deepens, this
process is likely to spread to many more corners
of the island. The concept of active citizenship
and social capital is highly valued in political cir-
cles but there is no recognition that the people of
Erris have become perhaps the most active citi-
zens in the country, alert to the contradictions
at the heart of our economic model and the need
for change which goes well beyond a reshuffling
of the seats in Dáil Éireann. The community has
been rewarded for its activism with a security
clampdown, media hostility and the dismissal
of unanswered health and safety concerns as
Nimbyism. The professional political class, from
left to right, cannot co-opt or appropriate this
unmanageable assembly of local businesspeople,
farmers, fishermen, teachers, retirees, priests,
students and others.
In Bolivia, a group of people began asking
awkward questions about oil and gas owner-
ship and the nature of political representation,
launching a campaign which was ignored,
repressed and finally voted into office as Coca
farmer Evo Morales was judged the best availa-
ble alternative to a stifling status quo. The Erris
movement is far from the corridors of power but
with events moving at an unpredictable pace, the
wilderness may yet become the centre stage. The
issues surrounding the Corrib Gas crisis are a
microcosm of Ireland’s economic and political
woes, as dependency on multinationals, a lack
of convictions and values among the political
class, and the State’s reckless disregard for the
welfare of citizens have brought the country to
crisis. The submissive manner in which Shell has
been facilitated in Erris was echoed in the recent
Lisbon Treaty campaign in which multination-
als played a significant role, providing useful
economic blackmail material to a grateful gov-
ernment which clearly holds Michael O’Leary in
higher esteem than Willie Corduff. The bank bail-
out and the NAMA proposal are backed by a tiny
élite who would never dare to put their opinions
to the ballot. Article of the Irish Constitution
allows a petition of one third of Dáil representa-
tives, backed by a Seanad majority, to request the
President to not sign any Bill which “contains a
proposal of such national importance that the
will of the people thereon ought to be ascer-
tained”. The significance of NAMA, one of the
most important legislative creations in the his-
tory of the State, surely deserves the challenge of
a public mandate. The marginalisation of alter-
native ideas in Erris is mirrored elsewhere as the
media continues to revolve around an ever nar-
rowing spectrum of approved opinion-makers.
The growing democratic deficit has seen citizens
lose all possibility of exerting control over their
lives yet the system of governance trundles along
as Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny demands ‘our
The debate over Rossport should
inform a national rethink.
m i c h a e l m c c a u g h a n
village_oct_09.indd 44 27/10/2009 15:38:56
turn’ in power as if the spoils of office were a mat-
ter of getting in line for a go of the jukebox.
The State’s reckless disregard for the wel-
fare of the people, exemplified by the glaring
health and safety gaps in the Corrib gas project,
has been amply documented in its broader real-
ity, as the Ryan Report, Hep C scandal and scan-
dalous conditions for children in care fail to
move the Dáil to decisive action. It will be inter-
esting to observe whether the memoirs of the
two Éamons (Ó Cuív of Fianna Fáil and Ryan
of the Green Party) will include the town-hall
meeting at Inbhear last April, an event which
should rank as one of the most passionate pub-
lic encounters between the government and the
governed in recent years. The public meeting
with the Ministers took place in the aftermath
of the assault on Willie Corduff at the Shell com-
pound on April th. The local people, whether
naïve or amnesiac, believed that their elected
representatives had finally come to understand
the scale of the crisis and alienation within the
community.
At least people squeezed into the small
community hall, while others watched through
open windows, despite the freezing weather.
Ciarán Ó Murchú, spokesperson for Pobal le
Chéile, voice of the business community, opened
the encounter. It quickly became apparent that
the Ministers had come with the sole purpose
of telling the community that the government
was powerless to act, powerless to intervene but
and it suddenly seemed a long journey for such
a short message - the Ministers felt their pain.
The response was remarkable and is obligatory
viewing (available free on DVD) for anyone
seeking to understand the significance of the
Erris conflict, a three-hour epic in which dozens
of people spoke out, combining passion, anger
and the trademark forensic knowledge of all
aspects of the gas project. The Ministers fiddled
with their pens and adopted the glazed-eye look,
a little embarrassed, demonstrating the earnest
Ministerial staring-over-heads technique. The
meeting began on the last day of April and ended
on Mayday, after midnight had struck. For a
brief instant, it seemed like we were living in
another country, where the people spoke and the
politicians listened. It seemed that if the energy
generated by one small rural community could
be replicated throughout Ireland, not only would
the government be shaken to its foundations
but the natural gas needs for the nation might
be met without any pipeline being built. It was
of course an illusion. The Ministers put up with
it, the media ignored it and the locals returned
to their homes. The ‘real’ event happened the
following day as the Ministers attended their
North West Mayo Forum, a pro-gas lobby
comprising gardaí, council officials and business
people, none of whom live close to the project.
Fr Michael Nallen, the local priest, denounced
the Forum as a ministerial attempt to create a
‘manufactured community’.
As An Bord Pleanála prepares to deliver its
verdict on the onshore pipeline route, the com-
munity remains steadfast in its opposition to the
project in its current form yet ready and willing
to sit down with anyone who can offer a compro-
mise. The Inbhear meeting, the beating of Willie
Corduff and the sinking of Pat O’Donnell’s boat
have radicalised the moderates and deepened
the sense of injustice. One of the most remark-
able comments made at the Inbhear meeting
was by Ciarán ÓMurchú, a skilled mediator and
former Air Corps pilot; and managing director
of Coláiste Uisce college; “We cannot trust Shell,
we have to take the law into our own hands”. This
comment from someone regarded as the most
moderate of the moderates was the final evi-
dence, if it was needed, that local patience is at
an end. The Erris campaign is enjoying a grad-
ual national resurgence as Shell to Sea opens
branches in Gort, Kildare, Killybegs and Kinsale,
complementing active groups in Cork, Galway,
Dublin and Limerick. The group is devoting time
to research and public-awareness events, broad-
ening the support base. This shift in tactics has
had one unexpected dividend as Shell security
workers, vital buffers against the action element
of the campaign, are put on shoRter hours. The
security staff at the terminal have seen their
working hours reduced from to a week,
leaving them with a wage
they claim is barely above
the dole. The workers com-
plain that the company is
rewarding their ‘loyalty’
with disdain after years
of protest which has left
them estranged from their
neighbours. This rare pub-
lic expression of disquiet
from behind the wire
should alert the campaign-
ers that deserting the bat-
tlefield on occasion can be
more useful than fighting
on hugely unequal terms.
The combined power of the world’s third larg-
est corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, with a pliable
government eager to court foreign investment,
should have given the Corrib gas developers an
easy ride to the finishing line, with gas expected
to flow by . Six years later, the project has
yet to secure a definitive onshore pipeline route,
while legal challenges look likely to delay the
project further. As the political system enters
stormy waters, the people of Erris have shown
how passion and ideas can invigorate the social
landscape, inviting inevitable conflict but also
offering a vision of another country should Irish
voters wake from deep slumber and follow their
poets rather than their politicians.
“dozens of people spoke out,
combining passion, anger
and the trademark forensic
knowledge of all aspects of
the gas project. The Ministers
fiddled with their pens”
Rossport, Ireland. Just a dream?
village_oct_09.indd 45 27/10/2009 15:39:00
