Palestine - Derry connections strengthened through marathon running

The Derry premiere of the Scottish documentary ‘Freedom to Run’ has jogged a few memories here in the city.

Screened in St Columb’s Hall at the beginning of March, ‘Freedom to Run’ showed the reality of life under occupation in Palestine, through the lens of marathon running.

The film focused on the Palestinian running group Right to Movement and a group from Glasgow as they trained for and ran the Palestine and Edinburgh marathons.

The Right to Movement members from Palestine who ran the Derry Marathon in 2016.

Prior to the current ongoing genocide, Palestinians in the West Bank could not move more than 10 kilometres without being stopped by Israeli restrictions.

Checkpoints, demands for permits, and the apartheid wall surrounding the occupied territories, were part of the struggle of daily life.

Speaking to Derry News, Daisy Mules recalled how several Right to Movement Palestinian founder members had run in the 2015 Derry Marathon.

“Derry fellas Ryan Moore and Mark Mullan organised the whole thing,” said Daisy. “They had met the co-founders of Right to Movement, which was not allied to any political party or organisations.

“Mark and Ryan thought it would be a good idea for some of the Right to Movement runners to come to Derry. They stayed a week or 10 days. I helped to host some of them. They were brilliant, energetic young people. They then said they would love some of us to go to Palestine the following year, so we did.

“Liam McConway, Charlie McMenamin, Catherine Hutton, Kieran Coyle and I, along with some other people, travelled to Bethlehem in 2016, to take part in the Palestinian Marathon. I didn’t run the marathon, I walked it!

“We were not all Republicans, we had just worked around the Palestinian issue for years. We spent eight days there. The Marathon was just one part of the trip. We travelled a lot. The Right to Movement guys, along with Ryan and Mark, organised an itinerary.

“We were all over the West Bank. We went down to Hebron. We went to Jerusalem. We went to Ramallah and Jericho. It was a brilliant experience. We had political people leading us.”

Mark Mullan recollected: “In 2014, there had been another brutal Israeli war on Gaza and a group of us in Derry were looking at ways to raise money for people in Palestine and to protest against what Israel was doing in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Myself, Liam McConway, Ryan Moore and Dean Power were all involved in Palestinian solidarity activism to one extent or another. We were all also involved in running. So, when we learned that a marathon had been established in Palestine a year or two earlier, the obvious thing for us to do was to take part.

“We made our way to Bethlehem in April 2015 to take part in the marathon. We raised funds for an Irish charity working in Gaza with which Liam was in contact, through his previous trips to Gaza as part of a convoy from Derry, which had tried to break the Israeli blockade.”

He added: “We toured around as much of the country as we could, meeting different organisations, taking part in protests and trying to get some sense of the brutal realities of life for ordinary Palestinians who live under constant oppression and threat of Israeli violence.

“We met with Right to Movement, the organisation that started the Palestine Marathon as a way of highlighting the restrictions that Palestinians lived with daily. “That is why the race is run on a circuitous route, as they simply can’t get 26 miles that is uninterrupted by Israeli checkpoints, blockades or the apartheid wall that hems in the Palestinian community.

“We discussed the similarities between Palestinian and Irish history and invited them to come to Derry to take part in the Walled City Marathon. Thanks to the support of many local businesses and activists, we were able to make that happen and a large delegation from Right to Movement spent a week here the following year.

“They were really touched by the wonderful welcome they received in Derry and I think that was a bit of a springboard for different trips around the world they have done since raising awareness and solidarity around Palestine and using sport and running as a way of doing so.”

That is how a group of Derry people went back to Palestine in 2016 to take part in the Marathon there.

“This time it was a bigger group as we were joined by Charlie McMenamin, who had also previously taken part in the Derry to Gaza convoy, Daisy Mules, Catherine Hutton, Hugh Hegarty and Ciaran Collins.

“Again, it was a very worthwhile trip and we have maintained contact with Right to Movement ever since.

“It was great too that a film about the Palestine Marathon was screened in Derry. one of those involved in producing it, Diala Isid, was part of the group that came to Derry and is a great ambassador for her community.

“But, as positive as all those relationships were, it is heartbreaking to see what Israel is still doing to the Palestinian people today.

“In 2014, we were appalled at the level of violence that Israel was inflicting on Gaza but ten years on they have surpassed even that brutality and escalated their war to a blatant genocidal campaign against an entrapped and defenceless population.

“We just hope that Palestinians know they are not alone and that they can take hope from others struggles - in Ireland, in South Africa - and know that one day, peace, freedom and justice is possible.”