{"id":658032,"date":"2026-10-18T01:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T01:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658032\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T01:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T01:42:15","slug":"dublin-march-sees-dozens-of-assorted-shoes-represent-healthcare-workers-in-gaza-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658032\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin march sees dozens of assorted shoes represent healthcare workers in Gaza \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish healthcare workers marched silently through Dublin<\/a> on Saturday in solidarity with their counterparts abducted, imprisoned or killed in Gaza<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Starting from St Stephen\u2019s Green, the Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine group were accompanied by the The Children\u2019s Blanket. Also known as the Granny Squares for Gaza, each of its 3,000 hand-knitted squares represents 10 children killed in Gaza.<\/p>\n

About 130 pairs of white shoes were displayed representing healthcare workers killed or abducted. <\/p>\n

Nicola Cantwell, a pharmacist from Co Carlow, said in April 2025, 1,400 pairs of shoes were displayed in the Netherlands. She said that since then the number had increased to 1,700.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shoes we have today are to highlight that increase and to focus people on thinking about the individuals that wore those shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA view of the protest on Grafton Street, Dublin. Photograph: Tom Honan for The Irish Times. <\/p>\n

The variety of shoes, from high heels to sandals and runners, served \u201cto remind people that every person who died in Palestine was a person with a life\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea of raising awareness is fantastic and standing in solidarity is fantastic, but now the world knows what\u2019s happening, so now what we need is for the world to make a collective, concentrated effort to stop the killing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people in Gaza at this stage are not living. They\u2019re just surviving. We need to give them back the joy and hope so, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today, is to call on everybody to make changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Cantwell set up the Irish Pharmacists for Palestine group. She has attended the marches since October 2023 to \u201cstand in solidarity with the healthcare workers, the doctors, the dentists, the pharmacists that have been killed while working.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first time ever that doctors and healthcare and hospitals have been seen as a target. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what\u2019s throwing us all because traditionally, if somebody came into you, it didn\u2019t matter what side they were on, they were always looked after and that\u2019s our duty of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Usually, she said, up to 1,000 people attended the marches.<\/p>\n

Marchers held signs, posters and banners and walked with Irish and Palestinian flags.<\/p>\n

Some of the signs said \u201cstop bombing Gaza,\u201d \u201clet the children eat\u201d and \u201cIsrael tortures doctors to death\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mike Grennan, from Co Offaly, is not a healthcare worker but travelled to Dublin to attend the march and \u201cshow bit of solidarity\u201d.<\/p>\n

He and a number of marchers held posters with the names of healthcare workers who have been detained. <\/p>\n

Dr Caroline Jagoe Sherman, a speech and language therapist based in Trinity College Dublin, also attended the march.<\/p>\n

She said she worked largely on disability rights and humanitarian action, describing Gaza as a \u201cpolitical crisis causing a humanitarian disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a disability angle what we\u2019re seeing is the intentional creation of disability through mutilation, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish healthcare workers marched silently through Dublin on Saturday in solidarity with their counterparts abducted, imprisoned or killed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[615,4507,3409,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-658032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-2","tag-gaza-strip","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}