Irish people take up cudgel for human rights abroad

REVOLUTIONARY tourist, left-wing crustie, noble-minded philantropist or adrenalin junkie, whatever way you look at it, there’s a certain breed of Irishman making his name abroad.

Take Colm Breathnach, a 38-year-old school teacher from Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. Instead of sticking to the history of schoolbooks, he decided to create some of his own.

On a study-break from a PHD in geography at Trinity College (after 15 years teaching at Coláiste Mhuire in Dublin’s Parnell Square), he headed off to Israel and now finds himself caught up in one of the world’s most complex conflicts. He has come down on the side of the Palestinians and is currently occupying a house near the West Bank town of Nablus, in an attempt to stave off Israeli rockets.

His 25-year-old friend, Salah Afifi, an architectural engineer from Ranelagh, is awaiting deportation from Tel Aviv. He, too, offered himself as protection to an elderly Palestinian couple whose son was a suicide bomber and whose home was an Israeli army target. Both men are members of the International Solidarity Movement, which has the support of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Salah’s involvement in Israeli travails is not too surprising given his mixed Irish/Palestinian background, but Colm’s is a little more difficult to fathom. He insists, however, that it’s nothing to do with choosing the glamour of another man’s war in far-flung climes, over the mundane slog of local battles at home.

“I have long been a political activist. I was a county councillor in Dun Laoghaire in the 1980s for the Worker’s Party. I am now part of a socialist network.

“What I’ve undertaken to do here is not some fad. I see a struggle for people to live their lives and I wouldn’t need to be here if the United Nations and other international agencies were doing their job properly.”

Caoimhe Butterly, a 24-year-old Dubliner, is just as strong on human rights. In Israel for the past seven-and-a-half months, Caoimhe, a member of the Irish Peace Alliance, has had a couple of hairy moments since her arrival. She spent time at the Yasser Arafat compound in Ramallah, when it was under siege by the Israeli army, believing that the presence of a foreign national would improve the safety of those inside. She is currently on her way to Jenin, where she too plans to stay in a Palestinian home, as a deterrent to Israeli rockets. Caoimhe will remain on until she is forced to follow in the reluctant footsteps of 49-year-old West Cork nurse Mary Kelly, deported in May for assisting Palestinians under-siege in Bethlehem’ Church of the Nativity. Her actions put her swiftly on a plane home. So did those of Cork backpacker Jonathan Joseph O’Shea.

He narrowly escaped a stint in jail Down Under after being found guilty of aiding and abetting the escape of refugees from the Woomera detention centre in Australia.

So what draws this peculiar breed of Irishman into foreign battle and why not stay and fight the wars at home? Some do, eventually.

Older and wiser political activists Christina Ní Dhurcáin and Micheál Ó Cadhla used to sail the high seas with Greenpeace trying to prevent plutonium shipments from reaching Sellafield. Now the husband-and-wife team from Co Waterford are busy translating their green skills into running their fledgling business. Bia, the Real Food Company, is conscientious about whether or not it uses free-range eggs in its egg-and-cress sandwiches, even though it does cost more. But sometimes the little battles can be brutally hard to win. “Last week we had to finally give in to using plastic bottles for our drinks, following the closure of Irish Glass in Dublin. We still have the same ethics as we had when we were involved with Greenpeace, but sometimes commercial considerations take over.”

There’s nothing like a reality check to bring the revolutionary tourist back to earth.