Rossport & Choice audio from 2006/7

 I’ve recovered some more of the first audio I recorded back in 2006/7.  These consist of two pro-Choice audio’s recorded at protests in Dublin and several Rossport ones.  The pro-choice ones are a picket of a rogue pregnancy advice agency and a solidarity rally with ‘D’ who had been injuncted to prevent her traveling to England for an abortion. There are also 7 audio’s related to the Rossport struggle, mostly done by Skype and mobile phone with people on the ground in Erris during protests.

 I’ve recovered some more of the first audio I recorded back in 2006/7.  These consist of two pro-Choice audio’s recorded at protests in Dublin and several Rossport ones.  The pro-choice ones are a picket of a rogue pregnancy advice agency and a solidarity rally with ‘D’ who had been injuncted to prevent her traveling to England for an abortion. There are also 7 audio’s related to the Rossport struggle, mostly done by Skype and mobile phone with people on the ground in Erris during protests.

Audio 1: Picket on rogue pregnancy agency in Dublin – March 2007
Audio from the picket of the rogue pregnancy advice agency in Dublin. Audio  includes some an anti-choice activist trying to defend the agency on the grounds that the ends justify the means. Its 3.1 mb and around 11 minutes. Due to a technical problem with the recording equipment the are some short segments randomly missing, apologies for this – https://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/mar2007/rogue24march.mp3

Audio 2: D case solidarity rally at GPO – May 2007
Choice Ireland held a rally at the GPO in Dublin today in solidarity with ‘D’ who is prevented travelling to England for an abortion by a court injunction This is the audio of the speakers at the rally. There are some skips in it due to my dodgy recording equipment, apologies for these -3.4 mb, 15 minutes 3.46 Mb
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/may2007/choicedemodcase.mp3

The first of the Rossport audio’s is also possibly the first ever recording I made.  Back then indymedia.ie was not yet accepting audio submissions so I used the radio.indymedia servers to upload the audio to and then linked to it there in an indymedia.ie post.

 

Audio 3Interview with Rossport Solidarity Camper about Corrib struggle – September 2006
MP3 – 5 minutes – 2Mb
An interview with a member of the Workers Solidarity Movement who is at the Rossport Solidarity Camp and has been joining the pickets preventing Shells attempts to resume work this week. Talks a little about the background, the numbers involved and what has been happening. Mp3 file is on radio.indymedia at http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/shellrossport.mp3

Audio 4: Report from actions today in Rossport – October 20 2006
Interview about National Day of Action in Rossport which saw repeated attempts to blockade the road to the refinery and Gardai (police) attacks on those doing the blockading. Audio file is 3.5 minutes of Mp3 1.2 Mb  It is located at http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/natdayaction20oct.mp3

Transcript of Audio 4 interview by Phuq Hedd
Interviewer: The struggle against Shell’s attempt to impose a dangerous gas pipeline on a local community in Rossport (in the West of Ireland) continued today with a national mobilisation, called for by the locals, where people travelled from around the country to go down and support them. Every morning they (the locals) have been marching to the refinery and today people from elsewhere in Ireland joined them.

This report is from Davy, who is a WSM member living in the camp in Rossport and he reports on todays events.

Davy: Today was a national day of action called in Rossport for [?] people from all over the country came up to Rossport to support the local community in their ongoing fight against Shell who are trying to attempt to build an onshore gas-refinery in Erris. The morning started at about 10 o’clock when people gathered at a t-junction near the refinery site where shell … on a road which Shell use to access the refinery site. There was a slow march up towards the refinery site which over time turned into a demi-blockade with, em the guards, with people walking very slowly in front of vehicles and then the guards having to pull people away. Effectively it was working pretty well as a blockade. When we reached the refinery site which was about a kilometer and a half away from our start point we stopped. People kind of re-grouped, we then marched back down the road and went further past the t-junction for about 2 kilometers, constantly blocking the trucks on the way out of the refinery site to do the pickup and the trucks coming back in. Then we turned around after going down those 2 kilometers and walked back up again and did this.

At this stage the police who had gotten very, very aggressive were throwing an awful lot of punches, punched a woman in the stomach, punched other people in the face, kicked people, quite violent, cornered us in. And then some of the local community led some of the people who had come down on a [??mission??] through the bog and back out onto the road again and they continued the blockade again. The blockade kind of dissipated around 12 o’clock.

Quite an enjoyable day was had by all and quite effective. Like, the blockade is I suppose, … or I suppose more accurately the disruption continued to 12 o’clock today. Everyone was quite empowered by the whole process. People really felt empowered by the fact that all these people had come from all across the country: Dublin, Cork, Galway, Clare, Belfast, [noise of passing car] Donegal. It was a great show of solidarity today, there was about 300, 400 people on the demonstration.

Interviewer: Any people arrested?

Dave: Oh yes, sorry. One person was arrested over allegedly criminally damaging a Garda camera [noise of passing car] … they were released 3 hours later without charge. The police as I said before were very, very aggressive. They really laid into people, punched people. I think a lot of people who came down from around the country had heard a lot about it on the internet or on the news and stuff were really shocked when they saw first hand exactly how the police were acting, that it was real, real aggression and … you know, very vicious the whole attitude [noise of passing car] their whole demeanour. And so I think it’s very useful in that … like the technology for what’s going on down here has spread further again.

Interviewer: How do people who are down there, the locals and people in the camp feel the actual day went? Are you pleased with the turn-out?

Dave: Oh, very pleased with the turn out, yeah. Probably, oh a good hundred, hundred and fity people come down for it and then there’s a big turn-out from the local community as well. People were quite happy, obviously there’s different reactions exactly … exactly … you know how different people saw the day, but I suppose it’s very difficult to tell because with anything like this your talking necessarily about just how succesful today was but how it sort of effects future actions, and does it empower people here to go on doing more, which I think it will, or does it make people angry, a little more a little less, you know does it disempower people which I can’t see how it could, so I suppose yeah, it was
quite a good day.

Audio 7: Shell HQ occupied in Dublin – March 27 2007
Shells HQ on Leeson street in Dublin has been occupied by activists protesting the give away of Ireland natural resources to this corporation depriving the health and education system of billions of euro worth of needed funds. The lobby has been occupied and a banner hung from the roof. The audio file below is an interview with someone occupying the lobby. Its 1mb mp3 and around 2.5 minutes in duration http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/mar2007/shelloccupation27march.mp3

Audio 8: Arrival of Special Branch (secret police) at occupation – March 27 2007
Short audio update saying that a large number of Special Branch (secret police) and public order unit have arrived and tried to intimidate supporters outside. http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/mar2007/shellocupdate1.mp3

Audio 9: Aggressive policing at blockade of Shell HQ in Dublin – April 27
This morning at 7.30 Dublin Shell to Sea members brought a taste of Mayo to Corrib House. Over 50 people took part in an ongoing blockade of the three entrances of the Shell HQ. The protest was peaceful with protesters linking arms and standing in front of the cars of employees as they attempted to enter the underground car park.

The first few managers got in as the protesters were perhaps caught out by a high level of Gardai aggression. Despite the warm morning several Gardai were observed pulling on heavy padded gloves, one lost it completely and was threatening to ‘smash your face in’ or ‘sort you out afterwards’ but most just confined themselves to trying to push the protesters out of the way of incoming cars.

The people of Mayo have been subjected to months of Gardai harrassment, checkpoints and confrontations at Shells behest. This morning Shells employees found out what it was like to face scuffles on the way into work. It was too much for most of them and they turned away.

At quarter to nine a Gardai got a car through by telling protesters the occupant was an RTE journalist but that was the last car in. Another spent three of four minutes trying to get in as protesters and Gardai scuffled all around them, one persons foot was ran over. Then they thought the better of it and drive off. At five to nine the same thing happened with another car until the senior Guard on duty ordered the drive to stop trying to get in and to drive off. After that Gardai checked all cars approaching the land and those containing Shell employees were directed to drive off.

Gardai was questioned as to why they were protecting the robbery of Irelands natural resources the profits of which could be used to fund health and education. They didn’t seem to have an answer beyond saying the protest was illegal. A small group of secret police watched events from across the road but played no other part while I was there. At 9.20 the blockade was still in progress with only about half a dozen Shell employees having managed to get into the building.

Here is the ballad of Corrib house – listen for the Gardai issuing the instruction ‘Drive your fucking car driver’ about mid way through. 1.5mb mp3 file, around 8 minutes – http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/apr2007/corrinhouseapril07.mp3


In putting these together I’ve realised somewhere out there I also have an interview I did with a RAG/WSM member about the launch of the first magazine and one or more interviews I did with people at the Gleneagles G8 protests.  I’ll try and hunt those down and add them over the next days if I succeed!