Ireland’s Unbroken Line of Support for Palestine
In Cork City, the march for Palestine has never faded;
it continues, echoing Ireland’s enduring voice for justice and freedom.
The story of Ireland and Palestine is not one of identical suffering but of shared memory, two peoples separated by geography yet bound by the experience of occupation. Both have lived under foreign rule, both were partitioned by imperial decree, and both have seen their histories rewritten by others to justify their subjugation.
When in 1920 Britain armed the Black and Tans to crush Ireland’s struggle for independence, it was perfecting a machinery of control it would later export across its empire. By 1948, that same machinery of red lines on maps, "mandates," and the language of civilisation had been turned upon Palestine. The ink that drew the border around the Irish Free State was not yet dry when new lines were drawn across the Levant, dividing another people and declaring it progress.
Ireland learned what it means to be managed rather than heard. It knew the weight of the empire’s gaze, how the Empire defined rebellion to occupation as ‘lawlessness’, hunger as misfortune, and faith as sedition. From the Great Famines to the Penal Laws, from land seizures to mass emigration, Ireland understood what happens when a nation is systematically made invisible to the moral imagination of the powerful.
That memory runs deep, embedded in the Irish DNA. It is why, when Irish eyes see the separation walls of Bethlehem or hear of demolished homes in Gaza, it resonates, there is recognition, not of sameness but of echoes from their own past. The language used may change, yet the shape of the wounds remains familiar: occupation, resistance, endurance.
Palestine stirs something older than politics in Ireland. It awakens the knowledge that freedom is never granted; it is claimed, defended, and carried forward through generations who refuse to be erased. It recalls the 1916 Proclamation’s promise, “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland”, now mirrored in the cries for the right of Palestinians to live, to return, to belong.
For Ireland, solidarity with Palestine is not an act of charity. It is an act of recognition, an understanding that silence in the face of oppression is complicity, and that memory, if it is to have meaning, must be used to defend those who are living through what we once endured.
Cork’s Living Solidarity
Cork has always been a city of conscience. From famine relief committees and labour strikes to protests against apartheid and nuclear arms, it has stood where justice demanded witness. Today, that same spirit finds its voice in solidarity with Palestine. Every Saturday since the first bombardments of Gaza, people have gathered on Grand Parade carrying flags, photos, and poems. The rhythm of their footsteps through the city’s narrow streets has become a steady pulse of remembrance.
The marches are quiet but resolute. Old republicans walk beside schoolteachers and students. Families bring children who carry hand-painted signs, while musicians play slow airs that turn protest into vigil. It is less spectacle than ceremony, a weekly act of conscience that binds Cork’s past to the suffering of others far away.
In the heart of this gathering stands a hand-stitched and crocheted banner, stretched between pairs of outstretched arms. Each square of coloured crocheted yarn represents ten Palestinian children killed in the most recent war in Palestine. The banner is not paraded or waved; it is lifted and held still, a soft wall of colour against the grey Irish sky. It transforms statistics into human presence, giving form to what words cannot hold.
Around it, silence falls. People lower their signs, and for a moment, Cork stands utterly still, a city remembering what it once meant to be voiceless. The knitted banner, made by Irish craftivists across towns and parishes, has become a national emblem of mourning and witness. It reminds all who see it that solidarity need not be loud to be powerful.
These gatherings continue through rain and wind, through winter darkness and long summer light. They are not protests of a day but of a people who refuse to let empathy fade. For Cork, standing with Palestine is not performance. It is a continuation of history, the living echo of a nation that once asked the world to listen.
Irish and Palestinian flags rise together in Cork as a speaker addresses the weekly Solidarity March. The gathering brings together people of all backgrounds, united in their call for justice, peace, and humanity amid the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
The Craft of Mourning and Witness
Across Ireland, a quiet form of resistance is growing. It is shaped not through slogans or speeches but through wool, colour, and the work of patient hands. Craftivism, where art becomes action, has become a way for people to express grief and moral outrage through creation. In Cork, that spirit has found its voice in a long crocheted and knitted banner that bears witness to the children of Gaza.
Each section of the banner is handmade and sent from towns and villages across Ireland. Women, students, and craft groups meet in community halls, kitchens, and libraries, turning sorrow into pattern. Every square represents ten Palestinian children killed in the most recent war. Together they form a vast, handwoven record of absence, a fabric that connects Irish compassion with Palestinian loss.
As the marchers return to the starting point of each protest, where songs, poems, and speeches rise from the crowd, the banner is raised. It stretches across the square, held steady by dozens of hands. Its colours, red, green, white, and black, reflect the Palestinian flag. It is not waved in celebration but held still, like a prayer. In that moment, the crowd falls into silence. People look along its length and see not craft, but testimony.
It is more than a way of counting the dead. It has become a giant stop sign held up to the world, a visual cry to end the killing, to end the occupation, and to return dignity to a proud people. Each square shouts the truth that numbers cannot hold. The act of raising it transforms protest into reflection, forcing those who stand before it to confront the cost of violence and the futility of pride.
This handmade gesture has become a quiet cornerstone of Irish solidarity. It continues Ireland’s long tradition of weaving, lace-making, and cooperative craft that once united rural communities through hard times. Now those same skills are used to call for peace. Through craftivism, mourning becomes visible, and empathy becomes an act of resistance.
When the banner rises in Cork, it carries more than wool and thread. It carries conscience. It is a human voice made of colour, telling the world that what is happening in Gaza must stop.
Now retired Senior Lecturer at University College Cork (UCC) International Development Course, Mike FitzGibbon, joins others at the Cork City March. Like many at UCC who have lived and worked in Palestine, Mike’s bond with the region runs deep, rooted in shared experiences, friendships, and a lasting commitment to justice.
Ireland’s Stand in the World
Ireland’s relationship with Palestine has never been a matter of political convenience. It is rooted in empathy born from experience. A nation that once endured occupation, famine, and forced migration recognises injustice when it sees it. This memory shapes how Ireland speaks to the world, giving its voice a moral weight that far exceeds its size. President Michael D. Higgins, speaking in June 2025, reminded the world that solidarity is not sentiment but responsibility.
“We are living in an era of profound challenges. The condition of our modern world too often seems to drift towards the opposite of solidarity: towards division, confrontation and neglect. Democracy itself is increasingly under attack. International agreements for conduct in war are being broken.”
His words echoed a collective unease across Ireland, where the images from Gaza were felt not as a distant tragedy but as something resonating in the national memory.
That recognition has always moved from thought to action. Across towns and cities, people gather each week beneath Palestinian flags, carrying banners, poetry, and handmade tributes. The Craftivism for Palestine banner, now stretching over fifty metres, has become the visual centrepiece of these marches, its thread linking past and present, empathy and protest.
Yet beneath this moral clarity lies a contradiction that Ireland cannot ignore. The country remains one of the largest importers of Israeli goods, purchasing billions of euros in electronics, machinery, and pharmaceuticals each year. In 2024 alone, trade exceeded €3.8 billion. This sits uneasily beside a government that has recognised the State of Palestine, condemned collective punishment, and pledged support for human rights. Words and policies move in one direction, trade and profit in another.
The Irish Parliament has debated legislation to ban imports from Israeli settlements, but progress has been slow. Activists argue that principles cannot stop at the border of economics. A nation that speaks of justice must be willing to pay the cost of it.
When Catherine Connolly won the vote as Ireland’s president in October 2025, she echoed this tension while reaffirming the nation’s moral stance.
“I come from Ireland, a history of colonisation, and I would be very wary of telling a sovereign people how to run their country. The Palestinians must decide in a democratic way who they want to lead their country.”
Her words reflected both continuity and challenge: the need to act with conscience while recognising the limits of power.
Public opinion remains far ahead of policy. Nearly eight in ten Irish citizens describe the war in Gaza as unjustifiable and want more decisive action through boycotts, divestment, and legal accountability. The Irish people still measure integrity not by wealth or alliances, but by whether their nation can look at itself and say it has done what is right.
Ireland’s moral authority has never rested on size or strength. It rests on memory, on knowing what hunger and silence once felt like, and on refusing to look away when others face the same. Yet the true test of that authority now lies not in speeches or vigils, but in trade routes and cargo manifests, where ships entering Dublin Port carry both commerce and conscience in their wake.
The Irish Parliament has debated legislation to ban imports from Israeli settlements, but progress has been slow. Activists argue that principles cannot stop at the border of economics. A nation that speaks of justice must be willing to pay the cost of it. The Occupied Territories Bill (2018, reintroduced 2025) aims to prohibit the import and sale of goods and services produced in illegal Israeli settlements, though it remains under EU legal review, leaving its enforcement uncertain.
Each Saturday, regardless of the weather, hundreds gather in Cork City to march in solidarity with the people of Gaza. The weekly demonstration, now a fixture of conscience, voices public disapproval of the world’s inaction and calls for an end to the suffering.
Memory, Morality, and the Unbroken Line
Ireland’s memory is not a relic. It is a living conscience that still shapes how the nation sees the world. The echoes of famine, occupation, and forced silence have not faded; they have matured into empathy. It is this empathy, tested by history, that binds Ireland’s people to the suffering of others, especially those who, like the Palestinians, struggle to keep their identity intact against overwhelming odds.
What endures is not only solidarity but continuity, a belief that justice cannot be seasonal and that moral courage cannot be selective. The streets of Cork, filled week after week with voices and banners, speak to that endurance. The craftivist banner, made by patient hands across Ireland, carries the same lesson in another form: that compassion is not passive, that memory has work to do.
For Ireland, the measure of integrity is not in what it says about freedom, but in how far it is willing to go to defend it. A nation that remembers its own hunger cannot ignore the hunger of another. A people who once fought to reclaim their voice cannot look away from those still unheard.
History has given Ireland a rare inheritance, the ability to see through the language of power and recognise the human cost beneath it. That inheritance carries responsibility. It asks whether Ireland can align its trade with its conscience, its policies with its principles, and its prosperity with its memory.
The story of Ireland and Palestine is not one of shared suffering alone. It is the story of how memory, when honoured, can become a bridge between people. As long as Irish voices continue to speak, and Irish hands continue to make, the line of solidarity will not break. It will endure, carrying forward a truth older than politics: that the measure of any nation lies in its humanity.
