In May, the campaign took a significant step forward: the High Court vindicated the so-called Rossport Five and forced Shell to drop the original pipeline route and pay the farmers’ legal fees.

What exactly is the Shell to Sea campaign?

We started off protesting against Shell putting a high-pressure gas pipeline through land beside our homes and building an oil refinery close to our community in County Mayo. The name of the campaign was chosen because we want Shell to build the refinery out to sea. We’re not against gas and we’re not against progress, that’s not what we’re objecting to – any progress that comes into a poor area such as this would be welcome. But the current plans for the pipeline and refinery threaten to destroy our clean water and air, our livelihoods and our fishing and tourism industries, as well as some highly protected coastal scenery, habitats and wildlife. Ireland is gaining nothing from this: all the money [to be gained from the oil and gas fields] is going outside of Ireland.

What is threatened by Shell’s current plans?
The pipeline will cross Special Areas of Conservation and National Heritage Areas, which are highly protected by our government and by Europe. The area is home to a highly protected species of bird – the sand martin – which nests on the cliff faces. Also Carrowmore Lake, which provides drinking water for the entire 10,000-strong population of Erris [the northwestern section of County Mayo], has already been polluted. As we speak, Shell is preparing the site and polluting it with aluminium, despite our appeals to the Environmental Protection Agency and Mayo County Council during the past three months.

How were residents forced to accept the proposed pipeline route by Shell, do you think?
Well Rossport [the village closest to the planned pipeline] is a small, close-knit rural community, and in the beginning, Shell invited the parish priest and the bishop to go by helicopter to see the oil rig and bless it. The following Sunday, the priest preached to the people that this was the end of their poverty. Most [residents] are older and have huge respect for the church and for the clergy, so when they heard this coming from the parish priest, they accepted it with open arms. The government changed the legislation and granted Shell compulsory acquisition orders. This left all the landowners [along the pipeline route] powerless. A Shell representative visited those landowners who objected to it, offering them extra money as compensation for disrupting their land if they signed up. People in rural western Ireland have never been to court, never been involved with the law, so as well as offering them money, they were threatening them with compulsory acquisition orders at the same time.

You and four others were sent to prison in 2005. Why?

We were sent to prison for 94 days for contempt of court for blocking access, peacefully, to our land. When they entered my land, I asked them to show me proof that they had the authority to be there. They refused, brought us to court and took out an injunction on us. We were put in jail on 29 June. To think that I just stood up and asked a few questions… It was terrible – I had never been in a courthouse in my life. We were made to feel like criminals. We were jailed [in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin], and the idea was that we would be in there for a few days and we’d come out crawling, offering to purge our contempt of court. They began to get weary after a fortnight and the media began to take interest. It was at this point that we began to get coverage and support and the campaign took off and we were labelled the Rossport Five. Shell dropped the injunction on 30 September.

What have you had to sacrifice to lead the protest?
We had believed in democracy and respected the law, respected the church, respected everybody, and we’d never objected to anything in our life. It’s been very,very difficult spending seven years of our lives attending meetings, protests and all sorts. But what has Ireland sacrificed? There will be no income out of this: all profits are going outside Ireland [the gas field is expected to earn Shell and its partners in excess of US$60billion (£30billion), but 45 per cent of profits will go to Shell,36.5 per cent to Statoil, Norway’s state oil company,18.5 per cent to US oil and gas corporation, Marathon].

How does the latest ruling affect the campaign?
Judge Mary Laffoy ruled that Shell should pay the legal costs and that all compulsory acquisitions against the landowners should be dropped. This means that the whole story of the Rossport Five and the time we spent in jail for supposedly defying the law has been completely vindicated and the original pipeline route is defunct. So, for the campaign, it’s great. But there’s still a long way to go: Shell is there now, building a refinery, without any community consultation, without a pipeline route going into it and without an EPA licence to operate. A petition has been submitted to the European Courts to halt construction based on the habitats directives that have been breached – and there are quite a few. We’re just ordinary people taking on a corporation that’s been in business for 100 years. We haven’t their experience or education, but you don’t need a degree to know the difference between right and wrong.

July 2007