thursday 17th April
Eyewitness account of todays events at Rath Lugh
Shortly before 1 o clock today there was a peaceful eviction of the Rath Lugh Camp. Four Protectors who were on site were told by Gardai that they had to be out by 1 o clock and to gather up their belongings and leave. This was not done in an aggressive manner and was complied with by the Protectors.
Once they had left the woods no one was allowed back in. There were 20 Gardai, 3 Garda Cars plus 2 Vans as well as about a dozen Construction Workers at the entrance to the woods as this was happening. A steel fence has now been erected separating the Rath from the public road. A mini digger is busy creating a path and a low loader is in situ.
In a sinister twist after the eviction, a female Protector was taking photographs from her car when she was approached by a man with an MD SECURITY yellow vest on and wearing a Balaclava! This was about 200mt from Gardai. He was harassing her about taking photographs even though she was perfectly entitled to do so and parked on a public road. Amazingly when she made a complaint to a Garda he denied that there were any men in balaclavas in the vicinity. Just as he said that, 2 Security men ran past them, both wearing balaclavas! The Garda refused to do anything about this and threatened to arrest her under the Housing and Miscellaneous Act!!!
Mark Cleary has just appeared with his camera.
There will be a video of this incident and the eviction issued shortly.
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6:30pm – another update – the protector is still in the tree house and they are trying to knock him down.
The camp has been completely thrashed and when some people tried to retrieve their belongings they were told that they would be arrested if they entered the woods.
The mood of construction workers and operators is very threatening, bags of belongings being cut with stanley knives etc.
There is no one to document what is going on.
There is a digger destroying the round house apparently …
They were told that no one is allowed into the wood any more.
They are not allowed to clean up – which was the intention over the next number of days.
What is really worrying is that one well known operator flashed some documents at the protestors and said that SIAC had just bought the whole wood from Coillte.