Irish artists raise over €7,000 at Palestine gig

IRISH Artists for Palestine and their fundraising concert Oíche Don Gaza raised over €7,000 for Médecins Sans Frontières on Thursday, April 4.

200 people attended the concert at the Ashdown Park Hotel in Gorey and enjoyed performances by artists Mary Black, Mary Coughlan, Pete Cummins, Ed Deane, Garvin Gallagher, Honor Heffernan, Trevor Knight, Dominic Mullan, Carole Nelson, Cormac O’Brien, Leo O’Kelly, Bill Shanley, Stephen James Smith, Johnnie Taylor and guest speakers TD Richard Boyd Barrett and Aislinn Wallace.

“It was an incredible night. What was amazing about it was the sense of community between the artist on stage and the audience. Everybody was there for one reason and while they enjoyed the music, there was a real show of solidarity.”

“It was incredible, you could feel the love in the room and every artist said that they could feel it coming off the audience. Audience members said we looked so united up there and we were,” said Honor Heffernan.

Artists sang their hits on the night, Leo Kelly sang ‘Tír na nÓg’ and Mary Black sang ‘No Frontiers’.

More than €2,000 of the €7,000 raised was from the raffle. “Tickets were €20 but loads of people were paying €50 and not asking for change or throwing the money in a bucket,” said Honor.

Furthermore, many local businesses donated raffle prizes and the Ashdown Park Hotel allowed them to use the room for free.

Every Wednesday, a group of local residents from Gorey gather for half an hour for a silent vigil at 6 p.m. at the Ulster Bank.