Jailed for refusing Shell's injunction
The Rossport Five
On 6 June 2005, five men from Rossport — Willie Corduff, Micheál Ó Seighin, Brendan Philbin, Philip McGrath, and Vincent McGrath — were sent to Mountjoy Prison for contempt of court. Shell had sought an injunction prohibiting them from interfering with the construction of the Corrib Gas pipeline. When they refused to comply — they would not allow the pipeline to cross their land — they were arrested and imprisoned. They spent ninety-four days inside. The public response was immediate: protests in Dublin, solidarity campaigns, national media attention. Shell, facing unprecedented pressure, withdrew the injunction. The men were released. But the pipeline story did not end there.
National resistance to a corporate plan
The Shell to Sea Campaign
The Rossport Five's imprisonment triggered Shell to Sea — a broad movement of local residents, environmental campaigners, human rights activists, and international solidarity groups. For over a decade, Shell to Sea demanded that the Corrib Gas onshore processing terminal be moved offshore, or the project abandoned entirely. Demonstrations, blockades, letters to politicians, international pressure campaigns — the movement built a national conversation about planning law, local consent, and whether a community could be overruled on land use. The Gardaí were deployed in unusual numbers. The campaign did not stop the pipeline, but it changed how the Irish state and Irish civil society thought about energy extraction and local rights.
Offshore resources, onshore conflict
The Corrib Gas Field
The Corrib gas field lies in the Atlantic, 220 km northwest of the Irish coast. It holds an estimated 650 billion to one trillion cubic feet of natural gas — a resource with decades of production potential. Shell was licensed to develop it. The company's original plan was to pipe the gas onshore at Rossport, build a processing terminal there, and feed the gas into the Irish transmission network. It was a straightforward development logic. What Shell did not anticipate was that the Rossport community would refuse. Landowners in the area — farmers who had worked their land for generations — said no. The subsequent resistance, led by the Rossport Five and backed by Shell to Sea and international environmental networks, became one of the most significant examples of local environmental resistance in Irish history. The terminal was eventually built at Bellanaboy, a few kilometres away. But the fact that it was not built where Shell first wanted it is a testament to what a small community can do when it stands together.