Resisting Gold Diggers In Sperrins

Ciaran McClean ✍ As events unfold in Venezuela with America appropriating it's natural resources to bring the people there prosperity after firstly seeing to USA oil companies, the Omagh based international mining company, Dalradian, must look on with envy as they enter their seventeenth year of financial failure in Northern Ireland.

Dalradian's investors would take the Sperrins Venezuela-style in a heartbeat had they the wherewithal to do so. Unfortunately for them Northern Ireland isn't Venezuela.

Going nowhere fast, Dalradian fall between two stools in their quest to enrich themselves at the expense of this little place. The outdated colonial playbook on how to buy your way into a country has proven worthless in the face of well organised local opposition who saw the miners' play from day one.

Secondly, the attempt to industrialise the Sperrins can't meet minimum environmental standards in law. With community activists understanding the planning system better than slothful politicians and inept civil servants, every move to facilitate Dalradian is counter checked. Unlike the last major scandal in Northern Ireland, there are no RHI type off-ramp options to allow the mining proposal to gain traction.

The scales of justice also refuse to tip in Dalradian's favour as protection of the common good, particularly environmental cases, increasingly prevail via the courts. Meanwhile, citizens see the Northern Ireland Executive support for (FDI) Foreign Direct Investment, at any cost, exposed as an exercise which trades their health and wellbeing to financially benefit privately operated businesses. They will not countenance that type of deal for the Sperrins.

In 2026 goldmining licences are expiring, environmental surveys outdated, legal obligations unfulfilled, even Dalradians camp in the Sperrins must be dismantled and returned to a green field site in the next short while.

All of the above points to a harsh reality for anyone foolish enough to buy into the fairy tale about digging up untold riches in the Sperrins. The question now is not, if the goldminers leave Northern Ireland, but when? Having relocated from South America to Northern Ireland some years ago believing political circumstances here looked favourable to assist their scheme, Dalradian would be well advised to avoid returning to that region. Regardless of who wears them, American jackboots will be resisted in Venezuela, Northern Ireland or anywhere else they try and impose themselves.

⏩Ciaran McClean campaigns against the rape of the Sperrins.