The Cork dawn really is no different to any other dawn. Just like Dublin it has that desolute urban feel, the only thing on display being the gut workings of the city's infrastructure and the isolated dash of grim looking early morning workers rushing to open shops before the coming commuter heave.

It's against this drab backdrop of another breaking October sky that we find ourselves doing the pirouette of the picket at the entrance to a Shell forecourt, repeatedly walking the circled line - turning in unison to ensure a banner proclaims a boycott of the station to passing cars and equally blockades the garage for them. The pirouette of the picket is an almost timeless method, thrown up by those in struggle against tediously pedantic acts of legislation on loitering that are turned time and time again against striking workers and protesters.

Before the Gardai arrived, all eight of them for the twelve of us - the Corkonion mirth dropped away as an SUV complete with bull bars drove through us leaving two protesters to throw themselves on the bonnet to avoid their legs being crushed and folded under its forward weight. The discourse of the right to consume clashes with the discourse of the right to protest, as a raging anger overcomes this small business man with all the ferocity of Bill Foster on a log jammed Californian highway in the movie Falling Down.

Ever more text messages bounce across the informal messaging trees as another Rossport resident is pushed to the ground by the state forces laying seige to the Erris area. Over the radio, Willie Corduff crackles through with the tension of the area palable all around him surrounded as he is by shouting voices, while a radio presenter called Jim Fahey attempts to retain the air of obective composure that makes his coverage credible and that of sites like Indymedia irrational and hsyterical, well at least in the eyes of its critics. While the voice of Fahey is questioning and investigative, the voice from Rossport contains no doubts, it is assertive and strong. Struck through with that resilence gained from rising every morning at dawn with your whole community standing behind you. There is no question - Shell can fuck off out to sea.

I've rarely interjected in inter-blog discussions, apart from commenting on music reviews. Does the stark silence of the Irish blogosphere mean apathy to Erris? Consent to Shell and corporate governance or something else?

<a href="http://indymedia.ie/mayo" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/antrophe/shellblogs.jpg" border="0" /></a>

So here it is, why don't those Irish blogs willing to line up behind the people of Rossport in their momentous struggle against bullying powers take this code and add it to your sidebar? Don't ask why it's comtaminated with myspace code, is Blogger bugged? It links to the news archive on Indymedia which has been breaking this struggle since day one, while the west was awakening the mainstream media was slumbering. Show your support.

Other Links: an interview I did with some of the Rossport Five back in June 2005.

Labels: Blogging, Interviews, Politics, Rossport, Social Movements