Thread by @soundmigration

As the ICJ case is today brought by South Africa against Israel for its genocide in Gaza, it feels kinda personally and politically relevant to the small part of Ireland I grew up in.

Two names.

Majella O'Hare and
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh

A 🧵

Majella O'Hare was 12 years old, when she was shot in the back and murdered by a British paratrooper as she walked to confession in the church next to St Malachy's primary school.

The paras tried to blame the IRA, and threatened and intimidate those who went to aid Majella

Twitter seems to have dropped the rest of the entire thread, I'll come back to it later

Then, as in Israel now, the British had a well-oiled propaganda machine ready to roll out chaos-making introduce confusion & establish cover-up.

To date, Majella’s family and community have never got justice. Yet the truth of what happened was known and documented as we’ll see

These are pages from a pamphlet written on witness testimonies from witnesses on the day Majella was murdered.

Including family and neighbours, some visiting the graves of relatives also murdered by state backed militia.

👇👇

The rest of the pamphlet is here 👇👇

It will be worth you while reading these today I assure you.

These photos are from Raymond Murray's 'State Violence' which is based upon a collection of numerous pamphlets of testimony after British army shootings very often involving the murder of innocent young kids, women and men. It's hard to overstate the value of that work.

Raymond, and people like him who carried out similar work bearing witness, listening to people, deciding not to look away from what was being inflicted in small communities in the face of propaganda is no small thing.

Telling the truth matters. These pamphlets matter

I was about 9 or 10 when I came across an original copy in our wee coal house shed. I read it cover to cover, at first in childish awe that it mentioned my school, my village, and the graveyard I visited my grandparent's grave. Then confusion, rage, sadness and fear. I cried.

Reading the description of someone close enough to my age being shot by soldiers at my school on a road I walked on passing Majella's memorial was utterly jarring. While it filled in details of something you knew happened, it was also other worldly.

There's something quite specific about growing up in a place where you know in your inner being that the state can kill you and for the most part - and despite the endless campaigning that comes later - that that's just the way of the world.

As I was reading the pamphlet, a printed name stopped me. It was my dad's name. This was telling me my dad drove onto the scene within minutes of the shooting, andthe car was stopped by the paras and words were exchanged, before he and my mum were ordered to drive away.

After many many times quizzing my dad about what happened that day, and nearly a decade after he died himself, I found out I was a toddler in the car at the time. I have no memory of that. In fairness to my dad, he never told me that while he was alive. He was a good man.

That is incidental to the thread though. How I came to be talking about the pamphlet in the last week was with my sibling who is active in Palestinian solidarity in Berlin. (a whole other thread needed for that context)

But we both has spotted

But we both had spotted, like many, that Irish human rights lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh was working on advising the South African case underway in the ICJ.

It was through our conversation they sent me this article.

It that mentioned Majella O'Hare
irishlegal.com/articles/lawye…

A few paragraphs stuck out

"I was 12 years old myself when I found a pamphlet about Majella O’Hare in one of my mother’s bookcases. I read it from cover to cover. I read about how she died in the arms of her father after he heard the shot and went running to her."

Ms Ní Ghrálaigh went to her mother in tears. Her mother’s response... “Do something about it”.

What a mum!

But this really hit home.

“I often think about my mother’s response. Her words struck a very profound chord. And I’ve hung on to that pamphlet over all these years. It’s now framed above my work desk as a reminder of what brought me here.”

Majella's family and many others in our community, thinking also of the Reavey family, have never got justice.

And yet through the bravery and humanity of people like Raymond Murray, a witness bearer and testimony collector, the truth of Majella's death is known.

And that truth-telling has played a part in the trajectory of someone playing a key role in the case against Israel.

Irish-Palestinian solidarity isn't just about the long arc of occupation and domination.

It's about recognising injustice through living with injustice.

It evokes some unfamiliar sensations to know that the life of Majella O'Hare played a specific part in the life choices of a barrister now working to halt the Israeli genocide in Gaza on a significant global stage. ♥️♥️♥️

#FreePalestine
#NoJusticeNoPeace

News report footage from Majella's funeral

Many of the witnesses in the pamphlet took part in this Amnesty campaign video released last year, along with Majella's brother Michael.

Powerful voices decades later.