OVER 100 FARMERS protested yesterday at the Belcoo drilling site in Fermanagh, as the home of one of the drilling workers was attacked.

Around 140 farm vehicles came out for a tractor run in the area, something protesters said was “a huge show of cross community and cross border solidarity against the threat of fracking”.

Last week, Leitrim County Council called on the Northern Irish authorities to halt drilling at the site by mining firm Tamboran Resources.

Councillors voted unanimously to ask the Taoiseach and the Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Alex White to intervene with British prime minister David Cameron and Northern First Minister Peter Robinson to immediately call for an end to all drilling works by Tamboran Resources.

Eddie Mitchell of the Love Leitrim group, a participant in the tractor run, organised by the Fermanagh community said:

“The number of farmers coming out today tells me one thing loud and clear. Fracking is not welcome on the island of Ireland, North or South. And this is the beginning of a movement that sees farmers standing up and fighting to protect their land and their families from that real threat.”

Attack

Meanwhile, BBC News reports that a Tamboran has confirmed that a member of staff had two petrol bombs thrown at his house.

Nobody was hurt in the incident, which the company says is the culmination of threats to their staff.

The company is testing rock excavated at the site and if it is found to have commercially viable levels of shale gas, fracking may be carried out.

Read: Emergency Leitrim Council meeting calls a halt to mining firm drilling in Belcoo

Read: “We are not going to win overnight.” – Anti-fracking activists as company prepares to start drilling