Irish Solidarity With Palestine (Documentary)

A short film documenting Irish solidarity with the Palestinian people including a powerful art installation on Sandymount Strand, Dublin by Palfest Ireland, Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah’s Irish tour in May 2016, Dunnes Stores boycott activist Cathryn O’Reilly and performances by Damien Dempsey and Rafeef at the prestigious Abbey Theatre. County Mayo was the site of Lord Erne’s estate, where his agent, former British Army Captain Charles Boycott, embarked on a ruthless programme of forced eviction of tenant farmers. Local members of the Irish Land League responded with the mass social isolation strategy they called “boycott”. Cathryn O’Reilly was one of eleven shopworkers who refused to handle South African goods in Dublin’s Dunnes Stores in 1984. They boycott strike lasted over to years. She explains how they did it, and how she supports the BDS campaign of boycott against Israel while the occupation of Palestine proceeds.