This year's Climate Camp will take place in Manorhamilton, Leitrim from August 9th to 13th 2023. Take action and join us!
Last year’s camp was in Tarbert, Co Kerry. There were three general motivations for the Climate Camp in Kerry:
Firstly, we wanted to engage in determined resistance to plans to build the Shannon LNG terminal in Tarbert, North Kerry;
Secondly, we wanted to bring together different groups from across the island and beyond, helping to build a strong and radical movement concerned with addressing climate change and its driving force, capitalism;
Thirdly, we wanted to create a space that contributes to building the society that we want (and need) beyond capitalism.
The week was full of family-friendly workshops, talks and cultural activities on the camp, as well as actions targeting the development of the gas terminal.
Climate Camp Ireland
The 2022 camp was the first Climate Camp in Ireland since 2010, and it took place on farmland close to the site of the controversial fracked gas import terminal. It was a family-friendly gathering, a welcoming, safe space created by activists from across Ireland and local campaigners – a space that is a model of the kind of society we want, and need, beyond capitalism. We can’t solve the climate crisis without dismantling capitalism.
The camp was also a base for direct action targeting Shannon LNG. We wanted to send a loud and clear message that if the government allows this disastrous project to go ahead, it will meet with determined resistance.
To avoid total ecosystem collapse and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, we must rapidly transition away from burning fossil fuels. And yet governments including Ireland’s are not taking the threat seriously – they are fast-tracking new gas-burning power stations and allowing power-hungry data centres to grow and grow. And now the gas lobby is successfully exploiting the war in Ukraine to strengthen the case for an LNG terminal in Ireland.
We hope that these together will contribute to building a strong and radical movement concerned with addressing climate change on the island of Ireland, and that the camp will ultimately help with a transformation away from fossil capitalism and empire, towards a more just and sustainable world.
About Slí Eile
Slí Eile is the organisational group involved with the climate camp. We began in 2019, emerging loosely from the tradition of climate camps. We are building a movement on the island of Ireland to resist climate change and its driving force, capitalism. We target the powerful interests that are causing the climate crisis while profiting from the current economic system. We are organising for the transformation of our communities and the wider world into one based on equality and solidarity.
Our Aims
We believe in the power of self organised communities to create the new systems we need. We need to take urgent strategic action to resist climate and ecological destruction.
We have three aims:
- To create spaces for education, for ourselves and our wider communities
- To build a radical climate movement on the island of Ireland.
- To act to end capitalist control of people and the earth