From The Rossport Solidarity Camp:

This morning at about 4am hundreds of Gardaí and Shell private security (IRMS) mobilised to Glenamoy crossroads where sections of Shell’s tunnel boring machine has been stuck on a jack-knifed lorry for the last number of days.

Since then convoys of lorries have been hauling stone from a stock pile inside the refinery to the site, dumping it into the field below the cab of the jack- knifed lorry. It is thought that they need better foundations than the bog road and fields in order to use a crane big enough to lift the weight of the lorry and the TBM.

Since this morning the area is under police occupation on a scale similar to that during the Solitaire pipelaying operation in 2008 and 2009.

With no warning or notices the North coast road between Glenamoy and Ballinaboy has been closed, there are Gardaí posted every 50 metres along this new haulage route and freedom of movement has been seriously curtailed. Anyone who wishes to come down to document the occupation and harassment of the community would be most welcome.

Glenamoy locals have noticed the road subsiding under all the weight – this will become worse if they get a crane in there. The desperation of behalf of Shell and the Gardaí mirrors what is at stake – the Corrib project is literally at a crossroads and could be slipping into the bog that Shell have been fighting against for all these years.

The camp is open and if you ever thought about coming up here then now is the time. The resistance over the last few days has been inspiring – starting with the protest presence Dublin port, the tracking across country and the protests and blockades in Mayo. Would the convoy drivers have decided to head down a bog road to turn for a better angle on the last corner if there had been no pressure?

Besides protest actions to stop the delivery of the TBM to the tunneling site (if they manage to move it at all) there is all the other work needed to keep the show on the road (and the TBM stuck on it) – housekeeping, reporting, media work, tea, food, transport and lots more.

If you can’t come please spread the word, and we’ll try keep you up to date as things happen.

All the best
Everyone at the Rossport Solidarity Camp

Thanks Mark Malone

Specifically a large chocolate biscuit cake with heavenly icing and subtle product placement?

Last night we marked our second birthday at Jo’Burger Town (JBT), Castle Market, Dublin (opposite Grogan’s) with a bit of a ‘get-together’.

Dublin cakesmith Helen Byrne, who has been baking things for more than 70 years, kindly donated the treat (presented above by Caspar ‘the Friendly Hipster Kid’).

We still have the cake.

Would you like the cake?

Just finish the sentence.

I deserve the chocolate biscuit cake because…

Most NOMNOMNOM deserving entry wins the cake.

Lines close at 2pm

[Should the winner reside in Dublin it can be picked up before 5pm]

2.10pm UPDATE:The winner is Lidija Radacic who works at Barnacles Hostel, Temple Bar, Dublin

She wrote: Righty – you wanna a bit of shameless promo? I have full hostel of hungry tourists who will each get a piece of cake and lecture about how Broadsheet is the best thing since the biscuit cake.  Yes, seriously, I will give it away. Nom nom nom.

(Pic:Leon Farrell)

Thanks all (but in particular to Elizabeth Leahy, Sinead Ryan, Joe Macken, Eight Degrees Brewing Company, Absolut Vodka and Chompsky’s dog handler). A lovely night.


 

“Speaking my mind.” What internet users seem to overlook is that the content of public discourse has not until now comprised the first-thought responses of contributors but (usually) something more considered, measured and refined.

…The general attitude – perhaps arising from a fear of seeming out of touch – seems to be that these new phenomena are unreservedly to be welcomed. Recently, there has been a soft initiative within this newspaper to persuade columnists to engage with posters who contribute to threads at the end of articles published on our web edition.

I am resisting, not because I am fearful of absorbing abuse but because I believe these platforms are about something quite different from our conventional understandings of public debate.

…Unfortunately, any attempt to enable society to focus on these questions is itself subject to the action of the problematic phenomenon, being instantly drowned in waves of abuse and derision.

 

And how’s that going down?

Ah

Internet Is Debasing Our Public Discourse (John Waters, Irish Times)

Pic via Communion and Liberation

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