Republican News · Thursday 21 February 2002

Irish protestors blockade Sellafield

BY MARC DARDIS

On Thursday morning, 14 February at 6pm, just as Sellafield staff arrived to work so did we, a group of 200 concerned individuals from Ireland. Our plan was simple, we wanted to close Sellafield for a day, by preventing staff getting to work. We blocked the two main entrances, leaving only minor roads to cope with 11,000 workers.

The police had been notified of the protest weeks in advance, but they where totally unprepared, inexperienced, and outnumbered and reinforcements took an hour and a half to arrive due to major traffic delays. One group stopped the traffic by simply dancing around and continuously crossing the road, while some members of the other group had to "lock on", (linking people together by placing their arms inside a metal tube with chains and clips).

Having blocked the roads successfully for four hours, both groups converged on the main gate, only to find that police had already done our job for us and blocked the gates. We sat talking to the police, with the Mountains of Mourne that sweep down to Dundalk as a backdrop. Before we left, the police kindly let us block workers leaving the plant so the press could take photos of the blockade. Although the British media machine don't generally cover stories of this nature, the message came through loud and clear on local radio, "Stay clear of Sellafield".