Drive Shell to Sea!

Barry McColgan

“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

1916 Proclamation

The A.R.I.S.E. campaign issue for the month of January will be Shell to Sea and Rossport Solidarity.

Ógra Shinn Féin believe that Ireland’s natural resources should be nationalised and used for the benefit of all the people of Ireland.

The brown envelope corrupt politics of Fianna Fail must be exposed, to rubberstamp, oversee and force the robbery of natural resources is a crime against Irish men and women and pours scourn on the easter proclamation.

The Free State government not content in imprisoning 5 brave community activists who arose to defend the safety of their local community and to protest against the robbery of national resources, are now baton charging and brutalising the local community in Rossport and those who bravely assist them in their admirable stance.

We in Ógra Shinn Féin will not stand idly by, and pledge to stand beside you in times of need.

Throughout January, Ógra cumann and activists should be joining Shell to Sea groups where they exist and where they don’t they should be helping establish shell to sea groups.

We should be disseminating information through leaflet drops and fly postering, we should be raising the issue by letters and articles for local press, related publications and the net, and we should be bringing pressure to bear and targeting those responsible for this sellout of resources and abomination of the proclamation namely – Bertie Ahern, Shell, and Statoil.

We should be organising mobilisations to the Rossport Solidarity Camp.

And we should of course be supporting international, national and local days of action against the neo-colonial exploits of Shell and Statoil. We should especially be mobilising Ógra activists and youth in our areas to travel and stand shoulder to shoulder with the empowered but enseiged community of Rossport.

Let us A.R.I.S.E. against the neo-colonialists and drive them to sea!

“In the language of our first President. Pádraíg Mac Phiarais, we declare that the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth-producing processes within the Nation, and with him we reaffirm that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare.”

Democratic Programme First Dail 1919