Shamrocks and Oil Slicks: A People’s Uprising Against Shell Oil in County Mayo, Ireland

Fast-paced and inspiring, Shamrocks and Oil Slicks chronicles the well-honed, divide-and-conquer tactics of one of the most powerful fossil-fuel companies on earth, as it splits up families while recruiting politicians, clergy, journalists, and cops as corporate allies. Some are bought off, others propagandized or “just following orders.” But the “stars” of the book are the ordinary citizens who become extraordinary activists—surviving jail, police violence, job loss, and ostracism to sustain a fifteen-year struggle. Naomi Klein would call them “heroes of Blockadia”; the Standing Rock Sioux call them “water protectors.” The story is set in Ireland’s County Mayo, but it could be coming to a community near you.

—Jeff Cohen, author, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media; founder, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

Shamrocks and Oil Slicks is a moving and important story of resistance by human beings who love their home, against the power of the corporate/government interlock. Simultaneously, it is a model for, and call to, precisely the sort of action we need to defend life on this planet from the depredations of capitalism.

—Derrick Jensen, environmental activist; author, The Myth of Human Supremacy

We all owe Fred Wilcox a gigantic thank you. He has provided us just what we need in this moment: a reminder of the power of people coming together, standing up to a powerful fossil fuel corporation, and fighting with everything they have, because what is at stake is everything they love. Shamrocks & Oil Slicks is an inspiring tale for all of us fighting against the odds for a better future.

—Annie Leonard, Director, Greenpeace US; author, The Story of Stuff

In Shamrocks and Oil Slicks, Mr. Wilcox has crafted a poignant and powerful tale of one determined community’s fight against greedy corporate polluters and their craven government enablers. This story is a critical one, as it can and should be used to inform and inspire the activism of all those waging similar fights against fossil fuel calamity throughout the world today.

—Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch; author, Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment