Members of the National Union of Journalists from throughout Ireland gathered at the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin, on Saturday afternoon for a vigil of remembrance for journalists killed in conflict zones across the world.
Biennial Delegate Conference of the NUJ in Ireland holds a candlelight vigil. Shpwn are the names of some of the names on the list of journalist killed after they were were read out.
Earlier today the Irish Biennial Delegate Conference unanimously passed a motion on the war calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel’s attempt to clamp down on the media.
128 flowers were laid in a symbolic procession, one for each journalist killed in the line of duty over the past two years.
Uilleann piper Noel Pocock played a lament after the names of the most recently murdered journalists, killed in the Israel-Palestine war.
The names of all murdered journalists were held aloft as the litany of names were read out.
Séamus Dooley, Irish Secretary, in welcoming journalists to the vigil warned that the list of killed journalists “would inevitably be out of date and may even have been overtaken by horrific events in Gaza”.
He said: “We gather today in sorrow. We gather to mourn our dead with dignity but let that dignity not be mistaken for lack of anger. The scandalous contempt for the rights of journalists under the Geneva Conventions and Protocols by the Israeli government cannot be justified by the vile actions of Hamas. We mourn the loss of life in Israel and Palestine. The blood of journalists is no different to the blood of the other men, women and children who have been slain in this horrific war.
As a union of journalists, we want to highlight the attempt to silence journalists and journalism, to close down media outlets and to prevent the story of the ongoing assault on human rights being told by independent journalists working in horrendous conditions.”
Names were read in chronological order by prominent NUJ members. The journalists had been murdered in the line of duty in Haiti, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Mexico, India, Brazil, Chad, Turkey, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Guatemala, Philippines, Bangladesh, Israel & the occupied Palestinian Territory, Chile, Honduras, Yemen, Ecuador, USA, Paraguay, Somalia, Colombia, Kenya, Syria, Cameroon, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Albania, Lesotho and Lebanon.
Mary Curtin, NUJ Member of Honour and a former RTÉ producer read Seamus Heaney’s poem “From the Republic of Conscience” before members read the names of the dead and the location of their murder.
The names were read by: Siobhan Holliman, Neil Ward, Ronan Brady, Judy Murphy, Anton McCabe, Gerry Curran, Kitty Holland, Damien Tiernan, Emma O’Kelly, Fran McNulty, Ian McGuinness, Reza Nuri, Norma Prendiville and Michael Foley.
Mary Curtin reads a poem by Seamus Heaney before the names of journalists killed since the last Irish biennial delegate conference were read out.
The vigil was to remember the journalists killed in the line of duty in 2022 and journalists killed in 2023, including 36 journalists killed so far in Gaza.