From The Field - Ireland

Gerry Bourke, farmer in County Mayo, Ireland.

I’m a farmer in the northwest of Ireland, near Erris in County Mayo. For
thirteen years we have been struggling against Shell to protect our land, our
environment and our community here. Shell wanted to bring their pipeline of
unprocessed, highly volatile and pollutant gas through the fields of our com-
munities – fields our families have cared for and nurtured for generations.

 It’s all bog around here – we make the fields fertile by bringing in seaweed from the sea. For us, the land is everything. We have resisted Shell and been violently
oppressed. People have been beaten, abused, subjected to martial law. Almost
a hundred complaints went in about the police behaviour here. Not one was an-
swered. People give off about Shell, but Shell was only allowed to do what they
have done. They have their own private police, security services. They were fa-
cilitated by the Irish state. The government drew a line around our villages and
said “The rule of law, of the Irish state, no longer applies here”. Like it was a
testing ground for oppressing their own people.

The state thought they could smash us, but instead they educated us. We met people with ideas, knowledge who came to help us in our struggle. We have learned a huge amount about how the world works, about how the Irish government can treat its people, and about alternatives. We hope now that our knowledge can help other communities – enough people together can change anything. We have to remember that everything on this island – from the last blade of grass to the moonlight - belongs to the Irish people, to all of us. We have to decide together.
We have a duty to ourselves and each other to have our opinions heard, to be responsible for what happens. The government will never do it for us.

from here