As St. Patrick’s Day weekend kicked off on March 14, business leaders and politicians wearing staid suits with emerald ties filtered into the Union League Club for the Irish American Partnership’s private breakfast with Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Ireland’s health minister.
Many of the well-heeled attendees ducked into the club’s entrance flanked by Chicago Police officers while about a dozen protesters from Chicago Irish for Palestine (CIFP) chanted “Jennifer MacNeill, you can’t hide. You’re complicit in genocide!” outside. The local grassroots organization, which formed ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last year to oppose then-President Joe Biden’s support of Israel, has protested what it contends is Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. During Friday’s demonstration, CIFP called on the Irish government to block American military and civil aircraft carrying weapons to Israel from Irish airspace and Shannon Airport. The Irish Consulate in Chicago did not respond to a request for comment.
Although pro-Palestinian sentiment is strong in Ireland, CIFP argues the Irish government is trying to play both sides of the conflict as it placates Irish citizens who call the war in Gaza a genocide while also appeasing the U.S. government with policies that benefit Israel.
“We’re here because there is a representative of the Irish government inside this building,” said Ryan, a CIFP member who led Friday’s protest. “So our goal is to make our presence known to her and to make sure that we have eyes on the Irish government’s complicity in genocide.”
Though most people who exited the Union League Club refused to talk to the Weekly, at least two attendees expressed dismay at the protest.
“I don’t agree with what they’re yelling about Jennifer MacNeill. She didn’t do anything, she’s here from Irealnd,” said Cliff Carlson, who publishes Irish American News, a Chicago-based newspaper serving the Irish American community in the Midwest. “I believe Palestine should be free and so should Israel and I also think it’s not antisemitic to say ‘stop killing each other’ and find a way by talking it out.”
Meg Buchanan, who attended the event and visited Ireland in January, said she didn’t agree with the use of Shannon Airport but pointed to the Irish government’s support of Palestine.
“I would say Irish Americans may not always be on the side of Palestine, but Ireland, for years, is unique in the international community in their support for Palestine and Palestinians,” said Buchanan. “So this is a weird place for [the protesters] to be.”
The weekend demonstrations in Chicago mirror those in Ireland, where hundreds of activists have regularly gathered outside the airport since 2023. Politicians from People Before Profit, a socialist party in Ireland, have demanded that the Irish government inspect planes suspected of carrying weapons to Israel after The Ditch and Drop Site News reported arms were flowing through Irish airspace for the war in Gaza. But just this week, the Irish Times reported that plans to inspect aircraft have faltered.
Shannon has long served as a hub for the U.S. military, which used the airport throughout the Gulf War and the Iraq War. That’s chafed activists who say the U.S. flights violate Irish neutrality.
“I think that it is morally wrong that [the United States] use Shannon Airport as a stopping point on their way to drop bombs on other people. And I think that it’s just wrong that Ireland lets that happen,” said Mary Coleman, who held a cardboard sign stating “Saoirse don Phalaistín” or “Freedom for Palestine” in Irish. “We’re kind of using the country of Ireland for our own gain, which Ireland doesn’t deserve. The people of Ireland don’t deserve that. They deserve full autonomy over their land and sovereignty.”
The protracted conflict in the Middle East reached a fever pitch on October 7, 2023, when Hamas, the paramilitary organization that is the governing body of Gaza, launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel, killing over 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 200 Israelis. Since then, the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel’s military has claimed more than 46,000 Palestinian lives, according to Palestinian health authorities, and those of at least 400 Israeli soldiers.
On January 15, the Israeli government and Hamas agreed on the first part of a multiphase cease-fire deal that would end the war. The first phase would free nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for thirty-three Israeli hostages. But recent efforts to extend the cease-fire have stalled, leaving twenty-four hostages behind and Palestinians once again threatened by famine with new Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza.
The humanitarian crisis has reverberated in Chicago and Cook County, which is home to the largest Palestinian American community in the country. Weeks after the October 7 attack, thousands marched along Michigan avenue to demand an end to Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. The demonstrations teed up a contentious City Council vote in January 2024 calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The symbolic resolution sparked a raucous public meeting and deadlocked council members in a 23-23 vote, forcing Mayor Brandon Johnson to cast the tiebreaker in favor. With Johnson’s vote cast, Chicago became the largest city in the country to endorse a cease-fire. The conflict has also shed light on deepening foreign policy rifts within the Democratic party in the DNC’s host city just months before the convention.
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CIFP points to the Irish and Palestinian people’s shared history of colonial oppression under British rule. In addition to protests, the group has organized benefit concerts for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Irish sessions at the Nabala Cafe, a Palestinian coffee shop in Uptown, and teach-ins on the shared history of Ireland and Palestine.
“There’s lots of blame-casting going around for what’s happening in Palestine. I blame the Brits! That was their colony,” said Jerry Boyle, a Canaryville native who sported a dark blue tweed jacket and red vest. “After World War II, the Western powers divvied up the Middle East in a way that was designed to create conflict. So I think British imperialism is directly responsible for what’s going on.”
Palestine and Ireland’s histories were intertwined beginning in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, the letter signed by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour supporting the establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. As chief secretary of Ireland in the late 1890s, “Bloody Balfour” cracked down on Irish rebels after the Royal Irish Constabulary shot and killed three men during a demonstration in County Cork.
As colonial secretary in the 1920s, Winston Churchill plucked the former colonial officers who had once policed Ireland and sent them to quash any uprisings in Palestine. Those men included the Black and Tans, a notorious group of police who imported their ruthless methods from Ireland to the Middle East.
That history inspired some demonstrators like Kit Reidy, whose family fled Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine, to attend her first CIFP on Friday.
“I feel a connection to Palestinians around colonization, imperialism, famine and genocide and everything,” Reidy said. She added that growing up, she learned about British soldiers in Ireland who had subjected her family and friends to violence. “It makes me feel like we need to speak out about the violence happening to the people in Gaza. It just feels very similar to me.”
At least one person at the event stopped by for a few minutes to join the protesters. Rev. Dr. Bill Shaw, director of the humanitarian and social justice organization 174 Trust in Belfast, chanted with the protesters before heading into the Union League. Back home in Northern Ireland, which is governed by the United Kingdom and separate from the sovereign Republic of Ireland, he has protested nearly every weekend since the October 7 attacks. His activism began twelve years ago after his first trip to Palestine.
“I don’t think, once you’ve been and seen, I mean any person with even an ounce of empathy, it’s unmistakable, the apartheid system, the oppression, the brutalization that the Palestinian people have suffered for, well certainly since the Nakba, but even before the Nakba,” he said.
Shaw, who is a Presbyterian minister in Northern Ireland, maintained that Irish sympathy for Palestinians doesn’t boil down to a Protestant or Catholic issue.
“It’s basically a humanity issue,” he said. “It’s standing with the oppressed against an oppressor that is all powerful because of America.”
Leigh Giangreco is a freelance reporter based in Chicago. You can follow her work on Twitter @LeighGiangreco and at leighgiangreco.com.
