About Us
Irish Artists for Palestine is an initiative to enable all Irish artists to extend their solidarity to the people of Palestine who for 75 years have been living under a brutal Israeli occupation.
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As Irish Artists for Palestine, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people through a week-long festival of music and the arts (November 28th to December 3rd, 2023). We invite participation and engagement from across the arts community to do what we do best: reflect the sentiment of our communities and extend a powerful message of solidarity to Palestine. Artistic expression creates spaces through which we can connect and forge personal and collective identities, deepening our resolve and resilience in the face of systemic violence and injustice. We are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and their culture. And we believe that art plays a crucial role in connecting the public with the lived experiences of Palestinians, and has the power to sway hearts and to open minds.
In response to a call to action from Palestinian artists, we work to amplify the voices of the Palestinian arts community. Irish Artists for Palestine will create spaces where support for the Palestinian freedom movement can be expressed through our collective voices and creativity. Irish Artists for Palestine is a grass-roots coalition of artists across all mediums and we welcome participation from all.
Our Goals
- Create a week of artistic events with the goal of fundraising to support and promote artists and cultural groups in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
- To connect Palestinian art collectives and cultural organisations with similar groups based in Ireland in order to develop and strengthen cultural ties between Ireland and Palestine.
- To platform Palestinian artists living in Ireland in order to elevate and extend the reach of their work.
- To raise awareness in Ireland of the Palestinian liberation movement, push for a shift in Irish consciousness, and broaden support and active participation in efforts to pressure Israel to end their occupation of Palestine.
As a movement we are calling on our political representatives to do the following:
1. Call for an unconditional cessation of the war on Gaza.
2. Place sanctions against Israel.
3. Legislate for the full divestment and boycott of Israeli companies and those that support Israel.
4. Expel the Israeli ambassador.
5. Formally recognise Israel as an apartheid state.
6. Call for an end to the 75 year occupation of Palestine.
Our Mission
Irish Artists for Palestine is a coalition of artists announcing an all-island programme of solidarity events for Palestine, spanning a 3-week period across the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, November 29th. These independent events aim to raise funds for the immediate medical and humanitarian needs of Palestinians, while raising awareness of the genocidal acts currently being carried out upon them by Israel’s western-backed military occupation.
Artists and speakers include: Lankum, The Mary Wallopers, The Saw Doctors, Mary Coughlan, Mary Black, Array Collective, Damien Dempsey, Declan O’Rourke, Lisa O’Neill, Bernadette McAliskey, David Holmes, Hala Jaber, Kneecap, Farrah Koutteineh, Frances Black, Sorcha Fox, Ruth Smith, 126 Artist-run Gallery, Mundy, SÃomha, Beoga, Steve Wall, Niamh Dunne, Amir Albualrob, Moxie, Krea, Aoife Hammond, Landless, SÃle Denvir, Strangeboy, Tom Dunne, Michael Magee, John Spillane, Fiachna Ó Braonáin, Fergal Scahill, Steo Wall, Pauline Scanlon, Jack O’Rourke, Dirty Faces, Barry Kerr, Tom Dunne, Rónán Ó Snodaigh, and many more. We appeal to the broader arts community – leading organisations, collectives, visual artists, and writers – to share in this call to action.Â
We invite participation and engagement from across the arts community to do what we do best: reflect the sentiment of our communities and extend a powerful message of solidarity to Palestine. Artistic expression creates spaces through which we can connect and deepen our resolve and resilience in the face of systemic violence, oppression, and injustice. We believe that art plays a crucial role in opening hearts and swaying minds. Irish Artists for Palestine will create spaces where support for the Palestinian freedom movement can be expressed through our collective voices and creativity. We welcome participation from all.
What we stand for:
- An end to the genocide and the implementation of an immediate ceasefire and an end to all violence against Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, across historic Palestine, and in the diaspora.
- The assertion of the rights of Palestinian people to freedom, resistance, and return.
- The call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of corporations complicit in the occupation and exploitation of Palestine.
- The commitment to the arts as a place of freedom of speech and expression. We refuse to be silenced.
- A dedication to creating spaces for Palestinian voices and those who stand in solidarity against imperialism.
Our work:
- Fundraising to meet the urgent medical and humanitarian needs in Gaza.
- Raising awareness and support in Ireland of the Palestinian liberation movement through active pressure for Israel to end its Western-backed occupation of Palestine.
- To strengthen cultural ties between Ireland and Palestine by:Â
> platforming Palestinian artists living in Ireland to elevate and extend the reach of their work.
> connecting Palestinian art collectives and cultural organisations with similar groups based in Ireland.