Polluted water is currently running off what was the construction site for Shell’s refinery in North-West Mayo, a site which is currently disused due to its closure by pickets; pickets that have continued from July 2005 right up till today.

In order to build the refinery on such boggy land Shell have had to transfer tons of peat from Ballinaboy (aka Bellanaboy – there are a variety of spellings) to a facility owned and operated by the state company Bord na Móna at Srahmore.
They were carrying out this work early last summer and it is the only work to date they have managed to undertake. Underneath the top layer of peat is a substance called dobe, which has high aluminium content.

The site is waterlogged, being a bog, and this being North Mayo it rains a lot, and the pools of aluminium contaminated water on the site run off into nearby Carrowmore Lake. Carrowmore Lake is the source of County Council water supply for the Erris area.

Read on for an interview with Terence Conway, Erris Shell to Sea activist, about this issue, plus lots of photos.

Related Links: Shell Contaminate the Water in Mayo
Carrowmore Lake by George Russell
Conservation Information on Carrowmore Lake

The metro on the way to the demo was packed, with barely breathing space; it emptied entirely at St Jacques qnd we started marching to Place Renfort for the demo. Right away it was clear that this was as big a demo as I'd ever seen, maybe Make Poverty History would be bigger, but that doesn't count. Generally people were having a good time, each party/union had their own sound system, and while some groups tried to lead their members in chants, many were content just to blare out crap french punk. Everyone was having a laugh, and les jeunes were passing around tins of cheap lager, rose and joints. So kind of like a massive Reclaim the Streets for some people.

After no end of milling around, the march got going, but it took several hours for all the groups to start moving. The CGT seemed to have an endless supply of vans filled with soundsystems and speakers leading the union branch in the slogan, "retrait! retrait! retrait cpe!". As the march passed the prison, the demonstrators cheered the prisoners who were at their cell windows. As the Anarchist groups moved past, the sound systems started playing as loudly as possible, and everyone raised their fists. This wasnt enough for some, and a symbolic attack was launched upon the prison walls, bottles and other debris bouncing off the brickwork. No prisoners were liberated. The march moved on eventually, and a few took the chance to graffiti a bank and others put their tag APH everywhere.

Background and Resources: French Universities Occupied | Three Generations March Hand In Hand. | French Youth Up In Arms Over New Employment Law

The Libcom site provides a blog with up to date archiving of events in France including exclusive translations, analysis, discussion and eye-witness accounts. Paris Indymedia also carries reports.

Other IMC Coverage on France: The Suburbs Are Ticking... Why The Nihilism Of The Paris Riots Is Not A Political "Insurrection | La Haine Est Dans La Rue| Paris Housing Hell | Paris Housing Hell 2 | Paris Housing Hell 3 | Discussion On earlier Riots On Indymedia.ie

Most of the population would have been getting out of bed this morning with a raging hangover. Mid afternoon people would be wiping the crust from their eyes, and making their way into town for a fry up, trying to recollect all the hazy memories of the night before, when the crowds were out and everyone was fired up with enthusiasm.

Thus I couldnt help but think that this day was very fitting for the anti-war march in Dublin. Approximately eight hundred people marched from the Garden of Remembrance to the end of Grafton Street, stopping briefly on O'Connell Bridge for a barely-registered two minute silence, then looped around back to the GPO. At the start of the rally where people assembled for speeches, there were numerous references made to three years ago where 100,000 people marched in town. This march today just seemed like a bad hangover for the Irish anti-war movement (no capitals). Hazy memories of when the crowds were out and everyone was fired up with enthusiasm, now long lost to the mists of time.

Residents of Erris will be discomforted to hear that the former Chief Superintendent of the Mayo Garda Síochána, John Carey, has been appointed as a local consultant to the Corrib Gas Project. Carey ‘s new role, which will be part-time, will ‘see him meeting local groups and residents and conveying their hopes and concerns relating to the project to the Corrib management team’ according to last week’s Mayo News. He will, apparently, ‘also be involved in informing people locally about the plans for the project as it moves forward’.

Carey’s appointment is fast on the heels of the appointment of two other prominent locals. Journalist Christy Loftus, and former County Secretary, Padraig Hughes now act as ‘external advisors’ to Shell. Both men are in a prime position to influence local opinion and defend the role of Shell in endangering the lives of the local community and ripping off the Irish taxpayer.

Carey, a local man from Bangor, resigned his position in the guards in April 2005. He had been Chief Superintendent of the area, stationed in Castlebar for the previous 9 years. He is generally considered to have ‘retired early’. Perhaps he just wasn’t Assistant Commissioner material. He is also a well known Mayo GAA personality. He captained the team to win the National League in 1970 and went on to win All Star honours, becoming Mayo’s first All Star in 1971.

The end of casinos and card rooms in Ireland?

About four years ago I got a job working for security in a large Vegas-style casino in Auckland, New Zealand. On my first morning I was introduced to the manager and other people I would be working with, handed a swipe pass, and given a list of my daily duties. The casino and adjoining conference centre and hotel were open 24 hours, all year round, and employed roughly 2,000 people in total. The majority of these were food/drink and cleaning staff on three rotating eight hour shifts. I had started on a Monday morning at 8am, and after being shown the ropes in the control room, my team leader asked me if I'd like to go on a tour of the gaming floor. Why not, I replied.

So off we went down to the enormous gaming floor. Bear in mind this was before 9am on a Monday, so I expected the place to be near empty, maybe a few cleaners hoovering the deep green carpets or polishing the roulette wheels in anticipation of a few people drifting in later on in the afternoon. Not a bit of it. Tables were full, cards being dealt, lights flashing and buzzers sounding, chips being stacked and counted. The "one armed bandit" areas were the worst. Red-eyed, gaunt, pasty, slouching, with their change bucket in one hand and the other eternally poised over the button, these people looked like they'd been there all night, all week, all their lives.

This was in huge contrast to the other "casinos" I'd previously been in - namely the Merrion, and the Jackpot (now closed, as far as I know) on Montague Street. These were card rooms, with no more than 60 people playing in a knockout Texas Hold'em tournament. There was no alcohol, they certainly werent open 24 hours, and the atmosphere was intimate and reasonably relaxed. They were operating in a legal grey area, and even though I'd been playing poker for a good while with friends in private house games, very few people seemed aware of their existence. In the last four years though, there's been a huge upsurge in people playing poker, and the casinos have multiplied in Dublin, and beyond.