March: Palestine Solidarity Protests Erupt Across Belfast

By Séamus Wagner

Across Belfast, preceding and following St. Patrick’s Day, a litany of pro-Palestine solidarity actions have occurred. 

Starting on the 15th with the “Shamrocks for Palestine” march, the QUB Palestine Assembly (QUBPA) mobilised around 300 demonstrators against the Trump administration’s proposed plans for Palestine. Speakers from IPSC Derry, People Before Profit, the Green Party, and Ireland Jews for Palestine decried the White House’s calls for an ethnic cleansing through forced displacement of Gaza’s people. Special attention was also drawn to the perceived complicity of figures such as Kier Starmer and Micheál Martin’s “disgraceful” enabling of the Trump administration and, for the latter, visiting the White House itself [1].

The latter condemnation was particularly relevant, with the previous march to the consulate stirring controversy [2] regarding some demonstrators perception that Sinn Féin, who visited the Biden administration for St. Patrick’s day celebrations, was enabling that President’s role in Israel’s genocide. Notably, Sinn Féin has not visited the White House this St. Patrick’s day, joining the boycott against the Trump administration. Alongside this, Sinn Féin was absent from this month’s march, not responding to QUBPA’s offer to speak in return for calling for the charges to be dropped on the QUB3 [3]. The QUB3, three Queen’s students arrested and charged by the PSNI during the anti-Clinton protest [4] last November, were a core part of the march, with protesters demanding the PSNI “drop the charges” placed against the students.

The QUB3 were a focal point of not just the march, but also a following demonstration on Monday. Led by BDS Belfast, a successive, smaller march to ‘Shamrocks for Palestine’ was held with protesters moving through the Holylands onto campus. Stopping on each street of the Holylands, protesters, flanked by police officers, highlighted crimes against humanity in and around each region mentioned, such as Cairo, Jerusalem, and Damascus streets. In comparison to the consulate march, which saw little to no confrontation with police despite heavy PSNI presence, this demonstration saw officers threatening to arrest and jail attending protesters. This was, according to the PSNI, due to the unofficial nature of the action and, therefore, the alleged illegality of the protest as a whole. Despite this, no violence or arrests took place. Upon reaching the lawn in front of Lanyon Place, protesters unfurled a large Palestinian flag, the same one protesters were arrested for attempting to unfurl last November. One of these protesters condemned “the criminalisation of students and activists” and questioned why Monday’s protest continued peacefully while November’s resulted in arrests and violence.

While these two protests had been planned weeks in advance, particularly the “Shamrocks for Palestine” march, Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire between itself and Hamas [5] has spurred on a series of emergency protests across Belfast. In the immediate aftermath of Israel’s reinvasion on the 18th, multiple protests and demonstrations were held across the city. In front of the Northern Ireland Office’s Erskine House, a group of protesters performed a sit-in on the street. Blocking rush hour traffic, they called for a renewed ceasefire and condemned the inaction of British and Irish politicians like Kier Starmer. PSNI were quick on the scene and continuously demanded protesters leave the road, with activists eventually moving off of the street. In combination with this, an emergency demonstration was held in front of the US consulate, with protesters reiterating the demands of those in front of Erskine House and loudly banging bin lids against the ground. A pro-Palestine banner was also unfurled targeting Danish shipping company Maersk whom activists have accused of shipping arms to Israel [6], an accusation which Maersk denies.

Towards the end of the week on Friday, another action took place at Erskine House, with activists briefly occupying the entrance of the building via another sit-in. Here, they, again, condemned the likes of Foreign Secretary David Lammy and other politicians, including those within the Northern Ireland Office, of complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime. They repeatedly faced police and security demands to leave, despite peaceful actions, and were eventually removed. Following this, they continued their protest outside the building, reiterating their opposition to British and Irish complicity with Israel.

Finally, a series of actions in reaction to the UNI Europa trade union conference starting on the 25th and ending on the 27th have occurred. These actions, which saw participation from the aforementioned BDS Belfast and Mothers Against Genocide, were in response to the presence of Israeli trade union group Histadrut. According to activists, Histadrut, which is the largest of Israel’s trade unions, has, preceding and following Israel’s formation in 1948, played a key role in the ethnic cleansing and forced removal of Palestinians from their land. After repeatedly storming the stage of the conference on two occasions and continuously protesting outside, activists demanded the UNI Europa remove Histadrut in a similar vein to its removal of Russian trade unions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

References

[1] Pope, C., (2025). “Micheál Martin meets Donald Trump in Washington: How the day progressed”. The Irish Times. 12 Mar 2025. https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/03/12/micheal-martin-donald-trump-meeting-live-updates-ireland-washington/

[2] Reid K., (2025). “Anti-Trump protest takes place outside US Consulate in Belfast”. The Belfast Telegraph. 5 Feb 2025. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/anti-trump-protest-takes-place-outside-us-consulate-in-belfast/a1216133659.html

[3] QUB3 Solidarity, Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/qub3solidarity/

[4] “Global Innovation Summit: Protests Against Clinton and QUB’s Ties to Israel”. The Gown. 14 Nov 2024. https://the-gown.com/2024/11/14/global-innovation-summit-protests-against-clinton-and-qubs-ties-to-israel/

[5] Al Jazeera Staff, (2025). “Why did Israel break the ceasefire in Gaza?” Al Jazeera. 18 Mar 2025. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/18/why-did-israel-break-the-ceasefire-in-gaza

[6] Palestinian Youth Movement, (2025). “Mask Off Maersk: Demand logistics giant Maersk cut ties with genocide”. Mondoweiss. 4 Jun 2025.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/mask-off-maersk-demand-logistics-giant-maersk-cut-ties-with-genocide/