From Saturday 28th Nov – Tues 1st Dec there was another successful action-packed gathering at Mainshill Solidarity Camp. With activists traveling from all over the UK, around 55 people converged on the camp and spent the weekend solidifying old defences, working on new ones and stopping the logging work on site.

Harvesters were stopped from chopping down trees and preparing the ground for mining machinery on both Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. The harvester drivers seemed happy to get a break and were friendly and chatty with the protestors. There are now 3 harvester machines working on site rather than just the one which has been working up until now, perhaps indicating that the almost daily actions to stop work have seriously delayed the work of removing trees at Mainshill in preparation for the mine.

Saturday night saw another legendary party and gave everyone a chance to celebrate some of the hard work done to solidify the defences in anticipation of an eviction. As well as all the work on defences, the communal spaces were also improved with the installation of a beautiful new burner in the communal made especially for the camp and a lot of progress on the new kitchen extension.

By Sunday morning there was news that an autonomous group of activists acting in solidarity with all those who oppose the open casting of Mainshill Wood had paid Lord Home a visit. Apparently Home was at home down the road from the camp, wining and dining a group of chums, probably in anticipation of a Sunday of grouse shooting. Reports on Indymedia state that “activists deflated tyres on all of the posh ccars outside the house, put superglue on the windscreens and left a sign on Home’s lawn saying ‘No Open Cast’.”

Climbing and bunker building workshops kept everyone busy on Sunday as well as collecting wood to keep the camp going during these colder weeks. There was snow on Monday but everyone was in high spirits after a really good weekend of work.