Anger and despair on the streets of Cork as famine takes hold in Gaza

An eerie silence fell on Patrick St on Saturday afternoon, broken only by the sound of hundreds of empty pots and pans clanging to symbolise the man-made catastrophe befalling the people of Gaza.

There has been a march for Palestine through Cork city every Saturday afternoon since Israel’s war in Gaza began in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas-led militants, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 hostages taken.

According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry (GHM) on Saturday, the death toll in Gaza has now topped 59,700.

This week, the Cork protest was almost silent for its first half, perhaps 500-strong leaving the Grand Parade, but the sound of those empty pots stopped the city’s main thoroughfare, and passersby saw placards showing photographs of skeletal, starving children.

The crowd found its voice as it returned up Oliver Plunkett St, surely doubling in size by the time it came back to its usual spot outside the City Library.

The chants seemed angrier this week, but that defiance felt tempered by despair, with several people in attendance speaking of a sense of helplessness as the famine long-predicted by the United Nations has now gripped Gaza. According to figures issued by the GHM, there have been 111 deaths in Gaza caused by starvation since October 7, 2023, with 43 of those this week.

The rally was addressed by UK trade union leader Mick Lynch — whose dad was from Cork — who was in town for the Spirit of Mother Jones festival.

Mr Lynch said that there were historic resonances between the Irish famine of 1845-52 — when more than a million people died in Ireland and a million more left in coffin ships — and what he called “the use of famine and hunger as a weapon of genocide in Gaza”.

“While no two historic situations are the same, the use of enforced famine has long been a weapon utilised by imperialists, as they seek to suppress a native population,” Mr Lynch said.

In Ireland in 1845, potato blight had been a natural disaster, but the failure by the British administration to intervene had caused the Great Famine, Mr Lynch said.

“Today, we have famine in Gaza, children are starving to death, old people dying in food queues,” he said.

“Families starve as thousands of tonnes of food aid stands just metres away, the trucks containing them prevented entry to Gaza by a colonial army equipped and supported by, among others, the US and UK.”