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A SLIGO-BASED doctor and the sister of President Catherine Connolly joined the Global Sumud Flotilla as it set sail for Gaza last Sunday.
The mission brings together more than 80 vessels and 1,000 participants from over 100 countries, making it the largest civilian maritime initiative to attempt to reach Gaza to date.
Dr Margaret Connolly is accompanied on her boat by three other Irish activists and others from Scotland, Norway and Los Angeles. She estimates that there are about 21 Irish people on the flotilla as a whole.
She spoke to the Sligo Weekender newspaper from the boat on Monday as she crossed the Mediterranean Sea.
Between periods of bad signal, Connolly described her current surroundings:
The boat is quite cramped with a gas cooker and I’m in a room with two little single beds.
“I’ve been in Sicily for two weeks, learning and settling in about the project. It was a little delayed because we were waiting on other boats to join us from Barcelona. But to be honest, it would take that time to adjust to leaving home and doing something I have never done before.”
She says she’s not a sailor and didn’t pay enough attention whenever she was out at sea with her family, as she says she now wishes she had done.
“The crew have been very patient with me, I learned how to steer the boat and tie knots today,” she said.
Connolly is vehement in her condemnation of the Israeli state, as she says that she is embarking on this mission to stand up against their wrongdoings.
“They have no right to be bombing, droning or attacking ships on a peaceful humanitarian project to take much needed aid into Gaza,” she said.
I have no words to describe how I feel about bombing and burning children, women and men to death in makeshift tents in the Gaza strip – which is a fifth of the size of Sligo, with a population of 2.2 million people in it.
Connolly is empathetic as a person and indeed a doctor to their case.
“The thoughts of doctors letting their babies die in incubators, coming in with amputations that have to be operated on without anaesthetic, cesarean sections done with no anaesthetic – I can’t get words to describe how you can bomb children and people calling for help,” she said.
She said that it is inevitable that the IDF will intercept their flotilla and come aboard their boat, in which she says that they have all been training for. Whenever this happens, they will throw their materials overboard and raise their hands to indicate they are peaceful protesters.
Asked if she was nervous for this to happen, she said: “We on the flotilla are not even comparing the danger we are in … to what they do to the prisoners in Gaza.”
The Global Sumud Flotilla which she is travelling with hopes to get about 150 miles from the red line of Gaza.
Connolly expects that the IDF will arrest them and bring them to a prison. They may also require a signature for a form which says that she has attempted to enter Israel illegally, but she says she “will not sign anything from the rogue state of Israel”.
“They can deport me but I won’t sign any form.”
She continued: “I know Irish people whine and winge a lot, but the humility and resilience of the Palestinian people should be looked at if we are to complain.”
Connolly described how she has been protesting for years in Sligo for Palestinian freedom alongside her husband councillor Declan Bree, also referring to People Before Profit councillor Gino O’Boyle and Sinn Féin Councillor Aurthur Gibbons.
“It goes back to your home and where you’re from, and a sense of what’s right or wrong.
“It’s just barbaric – I can’t take it in. I don’t need to look at any pictures or any videos. I would be choking. I just have to think about it – the idea of hurting someone is just awful.”
She said that growing up in a family of 14 means she is “keenly aware of a class system, that some had it better than others”.
“I want my daughters to stand proud and I want them to be unafraid to say, this is wrong – this is total insanity.”
Connolly said that one of her daughters who is training to be a doctor will probably come with her next time she embarks on such a mission.
Poet Sarah Clancy, who was also on a previous flotilla, was the one who told Connolly on how to apply for this.
American peace activist Ann Wright also met Connolly before she set sail as she wanted to praise the Irish members for their sympathy for the Palestinian people.
Wright was a colonel for the US army for 29 years but she is well known today as she resigned from the State Department in 2003 in protest of the US invasion of Iraq, citing violations of international law and curtailment of civil liberties. She is now 80 years old.
Connolly has already filmed her SOS video which will be released when they know the Israeli military boats are coming.
“We will know to throw all our phones overboard, and get rid of everything, all of our money has already been spent or sent home because they will take everything.
“It is not about them (the IDF) apprehending me. I am 67 years old and I am just sickened at the empty words of the government not doing enough. I know they’re constricted but we need action.”
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