The Rossport Five (Irish: Cúigear Ros Dumhach) are James Brendan Philbin, brothers Philip and Vincent McGrath, Willie Corduff and Micheál Ó Seighin. All five are from Kilcommon parish, Erris, County Mayo, Ireland and were jailed on 29 June 2005 by Justice Finnegan, President of the High Court of the Republic of Ireland, for civil contempt of court after refusing to obey a temporary court injunction forbidding them to interfere with work being undertaken by Shell on their land. The committal order was sought by Shell[1] who intended to build a high pressure raw gas pipeline across land in Rossport to pipe gas from the offshore Corrib Gas Field. Three of the five men own land in Rossport: Vincent McGrath and Ó Seighin were brought to court along with them as they had assisted in blocking the Shell workers. About thirty others who had done the same were not charged.
There were protests all over Ireland during the period of the men's imprisonment,[2][3][4][5] with filling stations of Shell, and its junior partner Statoil, being picketed and blockaded by both political activists and ordinary members of the public, a campaign that would eventually morph into Shell to Sea. Defending his company's stance, Shell Ireland's CEO Andy Pyle said: "The fact is that we've gone through a process, and we have five people who don't like the outcome." All Shell sites around Rossport and Bellinaboy were blockaded by the men's neighbours, preventing work.[6][7] Local TD Michael Ring said that Ireland was now a "dictatorship within a democracy".[8] In an unusual move by the Irish judiciary, the men were told that a judge would be on hand at any time of day or night if they wanted to purge their contempt, by promising they would no longer hinder Shell employees.
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 intense media and political scrutiny of the case.[9]
The five men and their supporters have continued to campaign on the issue.[10] In September 2006, a TNS/MRBI poll of adults in Mayo, commissioned by RTE, showed 66% supported the stance taken by the five men in their defiance of the court order, 20% did not.[11]
In January 2007, an account of events leading up their imprisonment was published by the Rossport Five.
In April 2007, Wille Corduff won the Goldman Environmental Prize on behalf of Europe. No government representative was present, though representatives were present from other countries for their winners.
In April 2008, Vincent McGrath and Mícheál Ó Seighin's wife Caitlín, among others, helped set up Pobal Chill Chomáin (PCC), a more locally-based offshoot of the Shell to Sea campaign that is seen as more moderate.
The summer and autumn of 2008 saw over forty arrests around Glengad (including Willie Corduff), the intended landfall of the raw gas pipeline. Mícheál Ó Seighin gave a reading at the blessing of the Shell to Sea Fleet in September 2008.