11 February 2024
By Bryan McCarthy
bryan@TheCork.ie
Up to a thousand people attending the weekly Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration in Cork city today. This was the eighteenth rally and march in eighteen weeks, since the first protest in the city in early October. Speakers at the rally welcomed the decision of Cork County Council to fly the Palestinian flag over County Hall, and called on the government to:
“heed the will of the people, who are demanding a ceasefire in Gaza”.
The main speaker was Laurence Davis, a senior lecture in government and politics at University College Cork. Mr Davis had acted as the coordinator of the “Irish Ship to Gaza” that was detained by Israeli forces at sea in 2011. Addressing the rally, he said:
“When we protest, we are not only addressing ourselves to those in power. We are also responding to the continuing call of the Palestinian people for a justice long denied. We are expressing solidarity with and giving hope to those in a seemingly hopeless situation. We are, in short, practising democracy in the best and truest and most principled and inclusive sense of the word.”
The demonstrators included contingents marching behind banners representing various professions and social groups, including Teachers for Palestine, Parents Against Genocide, Irish Association of Social Workers and Health Care Workers for Gaza.
Several political parties were also represented at the rally and carried banners, including the Social Democrats, Sinn Fein, People Before Profit, Solidarity and the Workers Party.
