Áras candidate tells Cork gathering that protests about Gaza 'are working’

Cork people protesting for the past 101 weeks against Israel’s war in Gaza have made a difference, presidential candidate Catherine Connolly has said.

Ms Connolly’s address came after earlier pickets outside the constituency offices of Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Fine Gael Cork North Central TD Colm Burke.

Independent Galway West TD Ms Connolly was addressing the weekly Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign (CSPC) rally on the Grand Parade, as part of a two-day Leeside canvass ahead of next month’s presidential election.

She told Saturday’s CSPC rally she had attended pro-Palestine vigils all over the country and they had made a difference. Ms Connolly said: “It’s very important that we use our voice every minute, every hour, every chance we get, because the normalisation of genocide is catastrophic for the Palestinian people and equally as catastrophic for humanity.”

“We are watching the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, the slaughter of medical people, the slaughter of journalists, and all of the time, it’s like a firing range, setting up an obscenity that’s described as a food station and then taking shots like in a circus, like in a fair.” 

The Occupied Territories Bill, “however bland it is”, still had not been passed, Ms Connolly said, and “we’re still allowing hundreds of [thousands of] troops to go through Shannon, and all the time we’re saying we don’t have the choice.

“But you have made a difference, you have forced the government in to recognising Palestine, you have stood, shoulder to shoulder, with the resilience shown by the Palestinian people.” 

Ms Connolly said she had listened on RTÉ’s Playback to a Palestinian academic describe his own starvation, even as he continues to teach.

“That is the resilience of the Palestinian people and the least we can do is stand in solidarity with them,” she said. 

“We need to express that all of the time, and you have made a difference... keep your courage, because you need to lead us, we are not leading, you need to lead, unfortunately, and force us to lead from above.

“A hundred and one weeks, and 101 weeks more, however long it takes to stop the genocide.” The streets of Cork city have seen CPSC rallies every Saturday since the Israel-Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023, sparked when Hamas-backed insurgents murdered some 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 hostages.

Since then, the death toll caused by Israeli Defence Forces attacks on Gaza has now passed 64,900.