Rossport Solidarity Camp is part of a struggle against Shell, Statoil, Marathon, and the Irish state's plans to destroy a remote area in the West of Ireland. This article is about where the camp is and how the camp is organised.
The Camp and Broadhaven Bay
The western coast of Ireland is generally very rugged, wild, and remote, and Erris is the pinnacle of all that.
Erris is in the far corner of county Mayo, beyond the white space on the map, a scattering of settlements stretched out along the seashore forming a centre of resistance to the state’s plans to mis-develop offshore reserves of oil and gas.
The camp is to be found on Glengad beach at the foot of Dooncarton Mountain, huddled between grassy sand dunes. The road to Glengad beach was removed by a landslide a couple of years ago, so the way into the camp is through some fields. The nearest village is Pollatomish, which has two very friendly pubs, a church and graveyard, a shop and post office. Across from the camp, a stonesthrow over Sruwaddacon bay is Rossport pier, and the beginning of Rossport village.
Before the camp is the beautiful blue expanse of Broadhaven bay. Shell’s nine kilometres raw gas pipeline to their proposed refinery at Ballinaboy is to begin here, at Glengad beach.
At the moment all there is is an empty lot of cleared land awaiting the construction of a compound. Attempts to start work there were halted by pickets last summer.
The camp consists of several benders, which are structures formed by pallets floors and bent over hazel rod roofs, marques, and a small wooden cottage. There is running water and also ample electricity from solar panels and a wind turbine. It was re-opened on this side of Sruwaddacon bay on the 25th of February 2006, last year it was on the other side of the bay, in Rossport, between June 2005 and September 2005.
Meals are communal vegan or vegetarian, with some food being purchased from a collective kitty, some donated, and some skipped. We ask everyone on the camp to contribute what they can to the kitty if they can.
The camp is run on anarchist and ecological lines.
We have paid a lot of attention to organisation.
Day to day running of the camp is decided upon by all participants at regular meetings; to avoid a situation of lack of direction, and major decisions going one way or the other according to who is at the camp at any particular time, and to assure that the decision making is carried out by those who will be affected by the decisions, we also have meetings on major strategic decisions, finance, media policy and such like, with these meetings being made up of people who have spent over one month on the camp non-consecutively. This is also designed to cater for people who are not on the camp all time but are working for the camp. We have a media team to deal with the media and a secretariat to answer enquiries from supporters and to keep contact with other groups.
We use a grey water system to treat our wastewater from the kitchen and wash areas. Grey water is any domestic wastewater except toilet water. The idea of the system we are using is to allow bacteria and water plants to work on water before we allow it to drain into the soil. We also use compost toilets. As much household waste as possible is recycled.
These are our guidelines:
(1) Alcohol and drugs are not permitted on camp.
(2) Sexual harassment will not be tolerated: we have a positive spaces policy to deal with problematic behaviour.
(3) Everyone on the camp is accountable; we don’t carry out individualist actions.
(4) We use a collective decision making process; everyone in the camp contributes to decisions that affect them.
(5) We are pursuing our goals through non-violent direct action.
(6) Everyone on the camp is treated as equal and work is shared equally.
(7) We try to leave as light an ecological footprint as possible. This includes recycling, composting or filtering our waste.
(8) The machairs (grassy dunes) surrounding the camp constitute a delicate habitat and eco-system. Please keep off the dunes, use marked pathways and respect the land on which we are camped at all times.
As number two suggests we are also conscious of dealing with gender related issues. ‘Accountable’ in number three means accountable to your collective, i.e. your fellow campers, not ‘accountable action’ as in its meaning in the peace movement tradition.
Point five is not there for reasons of pacifism, though some folk are that way inclined, but because that is the tactical approach we all feel is useful in this time and place.
At the moment the main work is building and maintaining structures, publicity – like writing this article, and joining in the residents’ pickets at Ballinaboy – the site of the proposed refinery.
Erris is in the far corner of county Mayo, beyond the white space on the map, a scattering of settlements stretched out along the seashore forming a centre of resistance to the state’s plans to mis-develop offshore reserves of oil and gas.
The camp is to be found on Glengad beach at the foot of Dooncarton Mountain, huddled between grassy sand dunes. The road to Glengad beach was removed by a landslide a couple of years ago, so the way into the camp is through some fields. The nearest village is Pollatomish, which has two very friendly pubs, a church and graveyard, a shop and post office. Across from the camp, a stonesthrow over Sruwaddacon bay is Rossport pier, and the beginning of Rossport village.
Before the camp is the beautiful blue expanse of Broadhaven bay. Shell’s nine kilometres raw gas pipeline to their proposed refinery at Ballinaboy is to begin here, at Glengad beach.
At the moment all there is is an empty lot of cleared land awaiting the construction of a compound. Attempts to start work there were halted by pickets last summer.
The camp consists of several benders, which are structures formed by pallets floors and bent over hazel rod roofs, marques, and a small wooden cottage. There is running water and also ample electricity from solar panels and a wind turbine. It was re-opened on this side of Sruwaddacon bay on the 25th of February 2006, last year it was on the other side of the bay, in Rossport, between June 2005 and September 2005.
Meals are communal vegan or vegetarian, with some food being purchased from a collective kitty, some donated, and some skipped. We ask everyone on the camp to contribute what they can to the kitty if they can.
The camp is run on anarchist and ecological lines.
We have paid a lot of attention to organisation.
Day to day running of the camp is decided upon by all participants at regular meetings; to avoid a situation of lack of direction, and major decisions going one way or the other according to who is at the camp at any particular time, and to assure that the decision making is carried out by those who will be affected by the decisions, we also have meetings on major strategic decisions, finance, media policy and such like, with these meetings being made up of people who have spent over one month on the camp non-consecutively. This is also designed to cater for people who are not on the camp all time but are working for the camp. We have a media team to deal with the media and a secretariat to answer enquiries from supporters and to keep contact with other groups.
We use a grey water system to treat our wastewater from the kitchen and wash areas. Grey water is any domestic wastewater except toilet water. The idea of the system we are using is to allow bacteria and water plants to work on water before we allow it to drain into the soil. We also use compost toilets. As much household waste as possible is recycled.
These are our guidelines:
(1) Alcohol and drugs are not permitted on camp.
(2) Sexual harassment will not be tolerated: we have a positive spaces policy to deal with problematic behaviour.
(3) Everyone on the camp is accountable; we don’t carry out individualist actions.
(4) We use a collective decision making process; everyone in the camp contributes to decisions that affect them.
(5) We are pursuing our goals through non-violent direct action.
(6) Everyone on the camp is treated as equal and work is shared equally.
(7) We try to leave as light an ecological footprint as possible. This includes recycling, composting or filtering our waste.
(8) The machairs (grassy dunes) surrounding the camp constitute a delicate habitat and eco-system. Please keep off the dunes, use marked pathways and respect the land on which we are camped at all times.
As number two suggests we are also conscious of dealing with gender related issues. ‘Accountable’ in number three means accountable to your collective, i.e. your fellow campers, not ‘accountable action’ as in its meaning in the peace movement tradition.
Point five is not there for reasons of pacifism, though some folk are that way inclined, but because that is the tactical approach we all feel is useful in this time and place.
At the moment the main work is building and maintaining structures, publicity – like writing this article, and joining in the residents’ pickets at Ballinaboy – the site of the proposed refinery.
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