Listen and Watch

To add to what I read this past week, I’ve listened and watched a few “Irish” things that I wanted to share.

First, I stumbled upon an Irish band named Tupelo (and with a name like that how could I not want to listen more). Some of their songs remind me of Old Crow Medicine Show and have a modern bluegrass feel. It would be easy to listen to most of their songs and maybe think they were from Tupelo, Mississippi but then Irishman comes on and it becomes clear that they are from Dublin. At the end of Irishman they list the names of the 14 men executed by the British for playing a role in the Easter Uprising in 1916. While the uprising itself wasn’t widely popular at the time, the way the men were executed served as a national rallying cry to bring the nation together to fight for independence. Some of their other songs have hints of Irish identity if you listen closely (like slang words and themes about land ownership) but it's easy to miss those subtle clues so sometimes I listen and picture Oxford. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CAVwwO8toU

Second, I went to a documentary showing last night on campus for The Pipe. In the west of Ireland Shell oil and gas company has been trying to build a pipeline from drilling off the coast to a refinery on land for over a decade now. It is really rare now for companies to refine gas on land, its usually done at sea where the drilling happens. The pipeline that would run to the refinery would run directly across people's land and homes. The pipe would contain a really high pressured gas that would be without the add-in chemicals that make gas smell (so you can know when there is a leak). Overall, it seems to me like a really high risk sort of operation that could put a lot of people in danger. The people of Co. Mayo and particularly Westport (the small town where the pipe is being built) have been fighting tooth and nail to stop the pipe from being built. Currently, the drilling and the pipe up to the land are complete as well as the refinery, so now the final stage is completing the pipe that will cross through the town. 

Westport is on the west of Ireland, almost directly across the country from Dublin but a little to the north

The documentary shows the struggle of the movement and the town over how to unite and fight the big oil company. After the documentary finished the audience heard from the spokesperson for Dublin Shell to Sea, which has become the national movement to support the work in Westport in getting Shell to relocate the pipeline. During the discussion after the documentary, it became clear that their is a much larger national debate around who owns the rights to Ireland's oil and gas reserves and where the profit really goes. There has also been a lot of controversy around the Shell to Sea movement, and I think a lot of it comes from organizational leadership. 

But controversy aside, I think the real thing to think about is would anyone want an oil pipeline in their backyard? Especially without even being asked about it. Many of the local people's demands of Shell are not radical. Several people interviewed in the documentary say they still want Shell to make their profit, they are just asking that the pipeline be moved to an uninhabited patch of land (which on the west coast of Ireland that is easy to come by). 

As we think about the human and environmental impact of BP's Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill, I get chills to think about what sort of impact would happen when the drilling is being done closer to land and the oil is being pumped across people's backyards. 

It's a scary battle that is taking place in one small town in Ireland and unfortunately, it's not getting enough national or international attention.

Thank yall for reading! Hope all is well!
 cheers,
 Chelsea