When the world’s largest pipe-laying ship, the Solitaire, arrived off the coast of county Mayo last week it did so under a massive protective shield provided by the Twenty-Six County state. The Gardai, the Navy and the Air Corps have all been mobilised to assist Shell lay a seventy-kilometre pipeline from the Corrib Gas field to the Mayo coast. If Shell has its way it is through this pipeline that billions of euros worth of Irish gas will flow - straight into the bank accounts of Shell’s shareholders.