Sean-nos Singer in Protest against Shell

Croch suas é, a Mhíchíl! [photo]

Seo alt ó Times On Line:

July 01, 2005

Irish singer in jail over Shell protests
By David Sharrock

AN IRISH traditional singer and four other men were in prison yesterday as a protest over the construction of a pipeline, in the heart of one of western Europe’s last wild landscapes, threatened to turn into a public relations disaster for energy giant Shell.

The five men, small landowners and farmers, were jailed for obstructing the laying of a high-pressure gas pipeline as part of the Corrib Gas Field project in north County Mayo, on Ireland’s west coast.

The men say that the pipeline, which will carry untreated gas from off the Mayo coast to a refinery 6 miles inland at Bellanaboy, puts the lives of locals at risk.

Michéal Ó Seighin, 65, a renowned local historian and an exponent of sean-nós, an ancient type of Irish folk singing, said that his imprisonment, along with Vincent McGrath, a retired teacher and musician, his brother Philip, Willie Corduff and Brendan Philbin, was an act of treason.

All of Mr Ó Seighin’s family were in court, including his wife, his son and three daughters. One of his daughters, Bríd, said that the family was worried about her father’s health while in prison. He underwent a triple heart bypass operation four years ago.

The pipeline crosses land belonging to the men which was compulsorily purchased in 2002 after the Irish Government ruled, for the first time in the state’s history, that the Shell construction project was in the national interest.

The five were jailed for breaching an injunction preventing local residents from blocking trucks belonging to Shell Ireland, the company building the pipeline. Their stay in prison is indefinite as they must purge their contempt before they can be released. More objectors will appear in court today for allegedly breaching the same order. Talks to resolve the crisis were taking place between Shell, which said that it deeply regrets the mens’ imprisonment, and politicians and church leaders.

Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, who had previously met some of the protesters, said: “The company, as I understand it, are fully within their rights as well. It is regrettable that it has come to this stage.”Hundreds of protesters were staging protests yesterday in Mayo and Dublin, demanding the mens’ release and the relocation of the Shell terminal 46 miles offshore. A move that both Shell and the Irish Government have said would be too costly.