The Boggers (the Good), the International Oil Companies (the Bad), and the Irish Government (Those Guys are Pretty Ugly)

The story of the so-called 'Rossport Five' gripped Ireland throughout the summer. Five farmers - otherwise known to Irish city-dwellers by the derogatory term 'boggers' (i.e. rural people who literaly live in the boglands - the American equivilant would be 'Hill-Billies' and/or 'Rednecks') -from the small village of Rossport (no doubt the seven-saloons-two-ranches variety of Irish village) in Ireland's Wild West, County Mayo - took on two of the world's major oil companies and got thrown in jail by the sherrif for their troubles.

The controversy arose when the British-Dutch company Shell and the Norweigian Statoil began building a gas pipeline from the gasfields off the coast of Mayo (shown below), inland trhough various small villages and farms. The five men, fearful of the effect of a major gas explosions on their homes - not that unlikely an occurance despite Ireland's lack of sabateurs to compare to ruthless Iraqi insurgents, impeded the construction work. Once arrested, they refused to promise not to attempt such a protest again. They refused to apolosge. They were locked up - allegedly at Shell's behest.

You see in these energy-anxious times, what with ever-rising oil prices and the fact that a fair chunk of the planet's energy reserves happen to be located in its most dangerous and unstable region, the Irish government decided to exploit the country's own reasourses. In their wisdom, instead of conducting the exploration using an Irish companies - or establishing one for the purpose, the government enlisted the help of foreign companies to mount the search. Certainly - as ministers point out - Ireland will reap the benefit of some energy security for the next twenty years (incidently about the time it takes for a gaspipe to corrode enough to be at risk of explosion according to todays Irish Times). However all the revenues generated by gas extracted on Irish territory will go into foreign coffers. This is fair enough as these companies paid for pricey exploration process but a ridiculous deal for the government to make.

Needless to say it's all been a bit of a fiasco. The five boggers were eventualy released from prison at the end of September after 94 inside. The government intervened in the case as the whole episode was becoming something of a PR disaster for an administration that is looking increasingly incompetant.

While not wanting to sound like a tree-shagging, organic veg-eating, wash in your own sweat, eco-freak, surely the best option for Ireland in all of this would have been to stick a few hundred wind turbines offshore. If we're too cheap to build it we could always get some company to build them and have them charge us for the electricity that'd be generated by the bone chilling Atlantic gale. Maybe Halliburton - they just won a contract to build a tunnel in Limerick. We could tack this project onto the end - we know what a great job they do for the US armed forces - cost over-runs and dodgy jobs are unheard of... It'd certainly help towards our Kyoto targets which Ireland will simply not meet unless we take more stringent actions to cut down on our CO2 emmisions. It'd last longer than twenty years - i don't think the wind's ever stopped blowing out West. Finally there'd be no risk of cow incineration from gas explosions and fewer boggers in jail.