Rossport Five
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The Rossport Five are James Brendan Philbin, brothers Philip and Vincent McGrath, Willie Corduff and Micheál Ó Seighin. These five men from County Mayo, Ireland were jailed on 29 June 2005 by Justice Finnegan, President of the High Court of the Republic of Ireland for contempt of court. They refused to obey a court injunction forbidding them to interfere with work being undertaken by Shell, who are building a high pressure gas pipeline across land in Rossport to pipe unrefined natural gas from the offshore Corrib Gas Field. Three of the five men own land in Rossport: Phillip McGrath has a house in Rossport and Micheál Ó Seighin lives about five miles (eight km) from Rossport in Stonefield. The government granted planning permission to Enterprise Oil (subsequently taken over by Shell) to build an onshore gas processing plant and to supply it using a high pressure pipeline which runs as close as seventy metres to the houses of some of these men.
There were protests all over Ireland during the period of the men's imprisonment, with petrol stations being picketed and blockaded by political activists and many ordinary members of the public. Protests grew during August and September 2005.[citation needed]
The men were released from Cloverhill Prison on 30 September 2005, after 94 days, when Shell applied to the High Court to have the injunction lifted. This came after media and political scrutiny of the case. A mediator, Mr Cassells, has been appointed by the Irish Government to try to resolve the dispute between the five men and Shell.
The campaign to stop the installation of the pipeline and refinery is called Shell To Sea, after the demand that Shell process the gas on an offshore rig.[citation needed]
The five men and their supporters have continued to campaign on the issue.[1]
[edit] References
- Ryan, Áine. "Shell Enter Bellanaboy Site", The Mayo News', October 3, 2006
