Injustice inspires Irish barrister in case against Israel

THE highly praised Irish barrister who is helping South Africa to take a case against Israel at the UN’s top court was inspired by injustices during the Troubles.

Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh is part of a crack legal team assembled by South Africa to take a case against Israel over its actions in Gaza. The case application cites breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention – strongly rejected by Israel and the US – and the International Court of Justice will hear submissions from both sides this week.

Ms Ní Ghrálaigh has previously worked on judicial proceedings in the West Bank and Gaza among other prominent cases – including the successful defence of Rhian Graham, accused of criminal damage for helping to topple a statue of slaver Edward Colston during a June 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, UK.

And the human rights expert said it was her upbringing in the Troubles-era North that gave her an abhorrence of injustice. Learning of the killing of 12year-old Majella O’Hare by a British paratrooper in 1976 affected the young Ms Ní Ghrálaigh profoundly, and she keeps a framed pamphlet about O’Hare in her office to this day.

Speaking to Irish Legal News in 2022, Ms Ní Ghrálaigh said: ‘I was 12 years old myself when I found a pamphlet about Majella O’Hare in one of my mother’s bookcases. I saw the picture of the young girl on the front, and saw her age, and 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.’

In tears, she asked her mother how such a thing could happen, to which her mother replied: ‘Do something about it.’

‘Her words struck a very profound chord. And I’ve hung on to that pamphlet... as a reminder of what brought me here.’