Cork rockers to play fundraising gig for Gaza  

How the world witnesses and responds to the current situation in Palestine will no doubt be taken as a watershed moment in history.

As pointed out by Belfast rappers Kneecap, upon their withdrawal from this month’s South By Southwest festival in Texas last week in response to sponsorships from the US military-industrial complex, as of time of writing, the lives of over 31,000 Palestinian people have been taken by Israeli military aggression and its knock-on effects since October of 2023, among them 21,000 women and children — exacting over ten times the total death-toll of the 30-year Troubles of Northern Ireland, in just over five months.

Following proceedings issued by the state of South Africa in December of 2023, in the case of South Africa vs. Israel, the International Court of Justice found Israel was operating ‘under plausible intent to commit genocide’, ordering Israel to observe the UN’s Genocide Convention, including the allowance of basic humanitarian interventions into Gaza — with US airdrops and a sea corridor decried as ineffective and costly by aid groups.

This past Monday, a report from the World Food Programme’s IPC initiative states that 70% of people in Northern Gaza face phase-5 deprivation of food, classed as ‘catastrophic hunger’. The report warned that ‘famine is imminent’ and that an expansion of Israel’s ongoing offensive in the packed southern city of Rafah could push the percentage of Gazans facing catastrophic hunger to around 50% of the overall population of 2.3 million people, up from 25% as of this past December.

In response to the report, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declared that Israel is using starvation as ‘a weapon of war’, while the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, Phillippe Lazzarini, was denied re-entry to the Gaza Strip as of Monday.

Suddenly, rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t seem so important.

On Sunday night, though, musicians and gig-goers in Cork city will come together at Cyprus Avenue to do one of the few things that feels like any sort of help at the moment — gather, raise funds for Human Appeal’s ongoing Gaza campaign, conduct conversations, make connections, learn collectively, and show solidarity with the people of Palestine, as a community, in an event featuring an astounding assembly of Cork’s current musical moment, including organisers The Altered Hours, Fixity, Elaine Malone, Caoilian Sherlock, I Dreamed I Dream and Pretty Happy.

“It’s a great reason to get together,” says Pretty Happy bassist/vocalist Arann Blake. “I don’t think we’ve ever been on a bill with I Dreamed I Dream or Caoilian Sherlock. The rest, we have (including Fixity’s Dan Walsh in some of his other musical capacities) — a lot of close friends on that line up and a lot of fantastic bands. Big fair-play to Cathal for organising a dream gig, for a great cause, under bad circumstances.”

“Really impressive work by Cathal MacGabhann (vocals/guitar) and The Altered Hours, putting this together, because a lineup of this magnitude is like a really beautiful thing to see,” says Elaine Malone. “I think there’s a great sense of powerlessness at the moment, when we’re watching the senseless obliteration of thousands and thousands of people, and all we can do is act with whatever means we have, and I think that’s true. Act.

“It feels like a very small action, really, we can stand on stage, we can entertain or whatever for an evening, and hope that people will try and donate, and even if people can’t come to the show, if they can donate, I think it’s really important. A small thing to do, really, but, you know, it’s, I think, the amount of positive energy and hopefulness that is going around Ireland at the moment, this vocal-ness happening.”

Also on hand will be local vegan-food company My Goodness, whose ‘Goods for Gaza’ sections of their stalls around the city sell artwork and homemade products, donated by artists and small businesses, have already raised thousands of euro for Medical Aid for Palestine. “It’s been a way for everyone to participate in their own way, and their own unique style towards a positive solution,” says co-founder Virginia O’Gara. “I think it was (singer and songwriter) Joan Baez that said, ‘action is the antidote to despair’. If everyone can come together collectively, we can have a response to this in a positive way, working towards liberation and freedom.”

While humanity has long become inured to images of war, hunger and displacement from the conflicts and wars of the past number of decades — your writer, a decrepit and elderly gentleman of 36 years, vividly remembers childhood news reports from the Troubles, Bosnia, the Iraq invasion and the Middle East — this is arguably the first time that we as a species are collectively witnessing aggression of this nature, perpetrated at this scale, in real-time, with social media and other second spaces providing harrowing imagery and stories of life under siege in Gaza.

Questions have been raised, on a personal, human basis, of how to process and respond to it all — or indeed, what that capability looks like on a collective or societal level. In a modern era where it seems we’re confronted with ‘once-in-a-generation’ events almost constantly, conversations around how we cope with a window to suffering — and how not to end up tuning out completely — are important.

“The last few months... it feels like a bit of a p*sstake to carry on, when such atrocities are happening,” says Julie Landers, percussion and vocals with I Dreamed I Dream. “I’m really privileged to feel such dissonance, I’ll acknowledge that — I can whinge and be like, ‘oh, it’s a bit heavy, but I’ll go home to a bed that won’t be destroyed by a bomb, my family are safe... I’ve been getting really p*ssed off recently, seeing this kind of terminology of ‘tapping out’, disengaging.

“It’s a product of late capitalism, that self-care has become highly individualised, commodified, like this is a radical act, and people are twisting the words to say, like bell hooks and Audrey Lorde, you have to come first. But, like, if your ‘coming first’ means that you are going to shut out the suffering of others, that’s not a radical act. That’s actually what a lot of humanity and civilisation right now feels based on, it’s based on selfishness. Like, it needs to be more than that.”

“Palestine has always kind of held a part of my psyche, and I think Ireland does have a strong connection with Palestine... a former colony, a revolutionary past, a history of civil rights issues,” says Blake. “From a very early age, I’d see cousins wearing T-shirts, and it was something that was discussed... it almost feels like something that was always bubbling underneath. For as horrific as it has gotten in Palestine, it’s never not been like that, in my psyche, this disgusting thing that’s happening, that is kind of ignored, because it doesn’t really suit foreign policies of a lot of these big powers, and me and my circles, my family, we’ve understood that for some time.

“It’s a funny thing, that... it’s hopeless at times, and it does feel hopeless, but it’s shone a light on it, and you see, for the first time, y’know, there’s a lot of mobilisation for the Palestinian issue. There’s friends of my mother there, who, like... it would have been 10 years ago now, at least, that were over, doing civil rights work over in Palestine. We were aware of how bad it was, through these kinds of people who went over there, because it’s not been publicised, you actually have to hear from people who have actually visited, and those organisations, but now it is — for f**king terrible reasons.”

“Caoimhe Butterly, a great Irish humanitarian, and a friend that I met at the end of the Guatemalan Civil War, in 1995, 1996, was recently at a march in Cork,” begins O’Gara. “She was talking about how we are all in this time of mourning together, and how we need to respond in a way that is kind and compassionate, and focuses on love and solidarity. I think I hold those words dear. We’re collectively in a state of shock, in a state of despair, but we’re also collectively, dealing with this together and helping each other through it...

“[For everything] that we’ve witnessed, those who are going through it, and those who are trying to fight for a more just world, are strengthening their bonds, this interconnectivity of community and people seeking justice is becoming stronger than ever. I’m seeing people who I’ve worked with for decades, who were never necessarily radicalised, becoming radicalised, and questioning the competence of those who we have elected, who are in charge of this, and who are supposed to be taking care of the world that we all live in. I see people seeing that capital only serves itself, and eventually all empires will fall.”

The big question for artists, thinkers, doers, facilitators, documentarians, commentators and such, then, turns to the role of their work and platforms in the overall discourse around these events.

Anyone reading the arts section of a newspaper in 2024 is familiar with the power of creation to stimulate, evoke,

create empathy, share urgency — using those methods of articulation to ensure the question of ‘what can we do?’ doesn’t become a thought-stopper as the cycle of attention churns on, but rather a point of community engagement and action, is something that comes up over each of our conversations.

“I think it’s something that goes beyond the scope of any sort of comprehension, that something so terrible, and so evil can be happening, while the world more or less just watches on,” says Elle O’Leary-Kelleher, guitarist of I Dreamed I Dream.

“It doesn’t feel like anything that anyone could ever possibly do would be enough. The one thing that does get to me, is that the only people I see making any statements about what’s happening, or really putting their money where their mouth is, to use a crass phrase, are small artists, with an awful lot to lose. When it comes to something like this, I don’t think there’s any way to do anything other than your best.

“But it is very annoying when you see big names with a lot of power and influence, who are also incredibly safe in their careers, and their lot in life, just doing nothing or saying nothing. Especially from acts that have claimed to be ‘political’ in the past, y’know. It’s not even something that’s political, it’s a basic common sense thing. No one should actually even have to look for clarity about how people feel — it should be a complete no-brainer.”

“Anyone who has a platform at all has a responsibility to share information, and politics are inextricably linked, y’know what I mean?”, says Malone.

“You see the actions of artists before South by Southwest last week pulling out, at great financial cost for themselves... That’s a big action to do. Career and self-promotion, all that sh*te, like, it doesn’t mean anything, right now, like, it really doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m someone who believes that the people of Palestine deserve to live on their land, free from violence, free from apartheid, colonialism and oppression,” Landers says. “I think we as artists, and creators... I’ve been thinking so much about this recently, and the way I can phrase it is, we need to recalibrate our dreams. We need to reconsider what empirical success, and success in general, looks like to artists and musicians, because we’re seeing that so much of that is actually bound off in Western imperialism.

“Like, playing (Berlin nightclub) Berghain was an identifiable marker of success, playing South by Southwest was an identifiable marker of success, as an artist or creator… and they can’t be anymore, until something else changes, and we have to change. Artists are not exempt from capitalism, because artistry might be their calling, but at the same time, like… we all have choices.”

“Stay active, continue to work towards creating a more egalitarian, horizontal community, get involved in community matters,” advises O’Gara.

“Understand what your talents and skills are, and use those tools to help benefit people who have maybe a little bit less than you. Get involved. Be active. Reach out. There’s so many different ways, if it is your wish to continue to contribute positively, towards the world.

“Start locally, join a club, and create a club. Check out Rebel Reads, the free space, the bookstore on The Marina where you can host an evening to teach people your skills.

“There’s a lot of ways to remain active, and to help yourself and to help your community fight against the inertia of desperation. In this world, I think, just continuing to stay active and creative, is probably the best way to fight against the ills of society.”

With all of this being said — Sunday’s gig provides another opportunity for local gig-goers and artists alike to gather and maintain faith with a people with whom Irish experience, history and identity are intimately interlinked, in shared colonial traumas and in consistent and unwavering solidarity, down through the years.

“It’s a very heavy topic,” opines Blake. “Myself and the lads went to the Gig for Gaza, in the (former Point Theatre) in Dublin, and I assume it’s going to be a similar feeling to that, where you get all these acts together, it’s going to be such fun, old friends reconnecting — but at the same time, there is awareness and the sombre aspect to it as well, to understand why you’re there.”

“I’m looking forward to it, y’know, it’ll be a fun night,” concludes O’Leary-Kelleher. “It’s going to be hopefully a night that will keep people thinking, and talking about what’s happening. The big fear that I have is that people stop talking about things, and then they... just go away. What’s been happening in Palestine has been happening for a really long time. We all know this. I think that Irish people in particular have actually been kind of talking about this, and thinking about this for a while.

“I think it’s good that it’s a case of not just passing by people in town, on Daunt Square, where you take the leaflet, and then you walk past. When it’s getting young people into a gig, getting people actively thinking, it’s a little... it’s a little more difficult to kind of walk away, I suppose. You’re at this gig, and you’re having a great time, but there’s a reason you’re there.”

• The Altered Hours, Fixity, Elaine Malone, Caoilian Sherlock, Pretty Happy and I Dreamed I Dream perform in a special fundraising gig for Gaza, this Sunday at Cyprus Avenue, Caroline Street. Doors 7pm, tickets €20.
• Vegan food company My Goodness’ ‘Goods for Gaza’ stall will also be present, selling donated arts and crafts from Cork artists - all proceeds from ticket sales and goods to Human Appeal.
• If you are unable to go, but would like to contribute, organisers urge donations to the cause at https://humanappeal.ie/appeals/gaza-emergency-fund.