How Irish Solidarity With Palestine Is Expressing Itself Through Art
By Meghnad Bose, reporting from Ireland and Northern Ireland
When Irish artist Emmalene Blake painted a mural on a wall in Dublin, of a Palestinian woman hugging the body of a child killed in the ongoing Israel-Palestine war, little did she know of the bonds her art would go on to forge, and the solidarities that it would strengthen. Between Emmalene and Samia, the woman she had painted. Between Dublin and Gaza.
Between Ireland and Palestine.
The photograph of Samia and the mural by Emmalene
On the left is the image clicked by photographer Mahmoud Bassam. Emmalene says it broke her heart when she saw it. It moved her to reimagine the photograph and paint it on a wall in Dublin's Harold Cross neighborhood. The only change she made? The shroud covering the child was painted as a Palestinian flag.
News of the mural in Dublin traveled far and wide, and a picture of Emmalene's artwork reached Samia Alatrash, the Palestinian journalist depicted in the mural. And Samia, in turn, reached out to Emmalene.
"You painted me and my sweet niece Masa," Samia told her.
Samia was in Rafah in southern Gaza, trapped in the midst of the Israel-Palestine war. Her niece, 2-year-old Masa, had been killed by Israeli bombardment in Rafah.
A photograph of Masa (shared by Samia on Instagram), and Emmalene's mural of her in Dublin
In the face of unspeakable tragedy, Samia had found what felt like a personal solidarity more than 2,500 miles away.
Emmalene says, “She’s displaced in Rafah. I told her I’ll sell t-shirts and sweatshirts and try and raise funds for her.”
“She (Samia) got in touch with me and said there was a family ten meters from where she was staying that was bombed and killed. And she was getting really scared.”
Emmalene decided to raise more funds for Samia, this time in the hopes of helping her evacuate from Gaza.
Her fundraiser has received more than 250 donations so far, and raised over €11,000 for Samia's family.
Emmalene's mural of Samia and Masa in Harold's Cross, Dublin
Emmalene says her efforts will continue, as will her art for Palestine. “It’s the biggest atrocity in our lifetimes. So, I’m certainly going to continue painting for as long as it goes on.”
A Walk Past Belfast's Wall of Solidarity With Palestine
And it's not just Dublin. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, a significant portion of the International Peace Wall on Divis Street has been painted with murals replicating artworks by Palestinian artists.
Come, let’s take a look.
Sprawled across the paintings are lines from Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer’s poem ‘If I Must Die’.
The three children holding hands represent the solidarity between Ireland, Palestine, and South Africa. On 27 March, Ireland said it would intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
On 6th December 2023, Alareer, the 44-year-old Palestinian professor whose poem adorns this wall, was killed by an Israeli strike in northern Gaza.
Irish 🇮🇪 and Palestinian 🇵🇸 flags fly over calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
As the bombing goes on in Gaza, these walls in Ireland and Northern Ireland continue to call for peace.
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The reporting for this story was conducted during a trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland as part of the Covering Religion course at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Read more stories from the trip here.
