Apparently, it was going to “dematerialize” the economy, as if software didn’t need hardware, and the boom in mining around the world has come to prove it was a lie. New mines anywhere, not only in peripheral countries that are old colonies, but also in the Northern metropolis itself. In Europe, Ireland has become one of the main destinations of large mining companies. Throughout Ireland, North and South, more than 25% of the soil has been authorised to search for minerals. But if you can't make a crutch without breaking the egg, you can't dig a quarter of the territory without shaking its inhabitants, as demonstrated by the start of a large gold mine in the vicinity of the Irish Mountains of Sperrin [Speirín].

Dalradian Gold Limited, of Canadian origin, has great aspirations for the Tyrone region of Northern Ireland. In 2017, with a 10,000 page report, he asked authorities for permission to break a new gold mine in the vicinity of Greencastle [island to An Caisleán Glas]. In the region that has a unique legally catalogued landscape, it is intended to immediately set in motion a mine, a mineral processing plant and a gold waste tank, equivalent to a seventeen storey building.

Against the project, 37,000 claims have been made by its inhabitants, arguing that the mine will destroy biodiversity, poison the air, pollute the streams, including the freshwater lizard that lives in danger of permanent loss, and will cause numerous damage to people’s health and the economy of the baserritars, etc.

As explained by V’cenza Cirefic in The Ecologist magazine, women are the main in actions to deal with the multinational, as in many other struggles around the planet. Judicial strife, public meetings, occupation of the area chosen by Dalradian Gold and coordination with other international movements have worked. One of them, Fidelma O’Kane, from the Save Our Sperrins group, won a small battle at the High Court of Justice, preventing the dirty waters in the cleaning of gold from being poured directly into the rivers.

However, the judgment also surprised O’Kane, the newspaper Belfast Telegraph, who learned that the judgment had put another earlier authorization into effect and that, under stricter conditions, Dalradian Gold will be able to pour dirty water into the streams. The multinational had its interests well sewn in the roles.

On July 15, the Irish Times daily offered a broad public report to the Dalradian Golden project, signed by the company’s Community Relations Manager: “Tyron has grasped an opportunity that only appears once in a generation and has to try.” It offers parents who think about the future of their children an undeniable opportunity: “[The end of the lockdown] caused by COVID-19 allows us to expand wealth in Tyron and throughout Northern Ireland. Dalradian Gold wants to make this opportunity a reality by creating a new industry with hundreds of jobs and long-term benefits for business as well as families.”

THREATENED MILITANTS

To believe in the company, the world’s largest gold, silver and copper pit is located in the subsoil of the Sperrin Mountains. Yes, these gold, silver and copper are found in rocks in microscopic particles, and these minerals, which were not profitable for a long time, will now be able to exploit them thanks to new underground mining methods. The company has reminded citizens that it has already invested £130 million (152 million euros) in environmental explorations, studies, engineering and research in the region. It is estimated that it will spend an extra £15 million on the training of the 1,000 new workers it will be hiring to take out and treat these minerals, which will be inside the 350 mines.

More benefits in quantitative terms: the supplies that the mine will need will inject an additional £750 million into its shops, will spend a minimum of £4 million on the projects of its municipality, during the 25 years of operation of the mining operation the project will add £750 million to the economy of Northern Ireland…

The environmental improvements of the gold mine will not be minor. The excavated area will be restored from the start of work to the end of the industry. The sheltered seamounts will be covered with good land and planted with native trees, in the style of the surrounding hills. They will take care of the groundwater and surrounding streams rigorously and recycle the dirty water. Lorries will be replaced by conveyor belts and all vehicles that are used or with biodiesel or electricity – everything will be leading, as Dalradian promises to be Europe’s first neutral carbon mine adapted to a low-carbon economy.

It should not be easy not only to have so much money, but to cope with what this kind of promise promises. The organisation Frontline Defensers, dedicated to the defence of militants convicted in environmental conflicts, has provided an example in the article When Irish Environmental Defers Receive Death Threats. In the organization they are used to working in cases of environmental defenders in Africa, Asia, America, the Middle East or Eki Europe, but at least they waited for the help of militants living 150 kilometres from the Dublin office. Fidelma O’Kane, winner of last year’s lawsuit to Dalradian, has been attacked on social media, others have suffered computer attacks on her tools and three men disguised on the face Cormac McAleer, who works with O’Kane in the Save Our Sperrins group, kidnapped her and beaten her. Recently, Northern Ireland police, PSNI, warned three team members that they had received a death threat against them and placed them in custody.

Those extremes and those nudges are just the beginning, you might think of one. Because the European Union has agreed with the Green Deal or the Green Pact to strongly promote mining activity in the home itself.