Doolough Famine Walk 2025

Afri

Join us on Saturday, May 17th, 2025, in Louisburgh, Co. Mayo, for our annual Afri Doolough Famine Walk, a poignant journey of remembrance, solidarity, and commitment to action. This year’s theme, Sowing Seeds of Change in Remembrance and Solidarity, calls on us to honour the lives needlessly lost during An Gorta Mór—the Great Hunger—by confronting the enduring injustices of our time in solidarity with communities affected today.

View the brochure and sponsorship card here

Register on Eventbrite here

History of the Famine Walk
Since 1988, our annual ‘Famine’ Walk has shed light on the parallels between the preventable tragedy of An Gorta Mór in Ireland and modern-day injustices worldwide, calling for action to address grave human rights violations globally. While those in dire need of food and relief died in the haunting beauty of the Doolough Valley in 1849, vast quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England —a fate that occurred all over the island during the ‘Famine’ years, 1845 -1852. These predictable, preventable, and human-made catastrophes occurred and continue, not by nature’s hand, but as a consequence of deliberate policies rooted in greed, dispossession, and domination. These stories of suffering, hunger and starvation are not relics of the past, but a living reality woven into the fabric of our world today, owing to colonialism, war and systemic injustice. This Ceremony and Walk serve not only as an invaluable means of remembrance but also as a continuing renewal of commitment to leaving a different legacy, in fierce determination to imagine and strive for a world rooted in justice, dignity, and equity.

Event Highlights & Structure

11:00 AM – Registration in Louisburgh Town Hall

Walkers will gather in Louisburgh Parish Hall from 11 am for registration. All walkers, even those who are pre-registered, must go to the registration desk to check in and collect their ticket to board the shuttle bus (included in ticket price).

12:00 PM – Opening Ceremony
We will gather at Louisburgh Parish Hall for the Opening Ceremony, featuring conversation, live music and thought-provoking reflections on An Gorta Mór and its parallels today from renowned speakers.

Speaker and Performer Highlights
Clare O’Grady Walshe – Seed Keeper, Author, and Expert in Seed Sovereignty and Globalisation

Paul Laverty – Award-winning Screenwriter, Lawyer, Humanitarian and Storyteller.

Eman Mohammed – Senior Ted Fellow and Award-winning Palestinian Photojournalist

Farah Elle – Libyan-Irish Progressive Musician Whose Distinctive Voice Reveals Something of the Beauty in the Ephemeral Every Day.

12:50 PM – Shuttle Buses to Walk Starting Point

Walkers will be shuttled to the walk’s starting point, where a short tree-planting ceremony will take place before the walk begins. The bus takes approximately 20 minutes. Toilet facilities will be available at the starting point. Please note that no parking is available at the starting point, so walkers must take the shuttle bus.

1:30 PM – Doolough Famine Walk
Following a short tree-planting ceremony at the starting point, we will embark on the Doolough Famine Walk. This 17-km journey retraces the steps of those who journeyed or died in the Doolough Tragedy in 1849, honouring each one as a human with a name, hopes, dreams, and fears. On return to the Louisburgh Parish Hall, each walker will receive a Certificate of Completion.

Why Walk With Us?
As we walk in memory of all who died, whether by starvation or disease, not forgetting those displaced, we stand in solidarity with those all over the world for whom the experience of deprivation, destruction and death is a current reality. This event compels us to see how history is repeating itself, particularly in Palestine, where starvation is being weaponised as a tool of genocide, and urges each of us to heed the call of shared struggle for more just futures as ancestors to be. Your participation also supports Afri’s vital work in education, campaigning, and solidarity. By walking, we defy indifference to injustice and commit to building a future where no one is abandoned to hunger or violence.

Book Your Place Today!
Spaces are limited. Secure your ticket now and join a community of remembrance and resolve. Please note that if the cost is a barrier for you at this time, you can reach out to admin@afri.ie confidentially.

Next Steps:
Stay tuned for the event brochure, which will provide further details, including detailed speaker and performer biographies, information about parking, toilet facilities, and a sponsorship card. Please don’t hesitate to contact admin@afri.ie if you have any questions.

We look forward to seeing you at this unmissable event!

Annual Féile na Beatha Festival Takes Place at SETU

Afri

SETU hosted the annual Féile na Beatha (Festival of Life) in collaboration with Afri (Action from Ireland) on Thursday, 27 March.

The event brought together social care students, Afri, and members of the University and local community to commemorate the lives lost during the Great Famine and reflect on how history can guide us in fostering a more caring and compassionate society.

Students of SETU and The Delta Centre singing An Gorta Mór alongside one another at the Famine graveyard during Féile na Beatha
Students of SETU and The Delta Centre singing at Féile na Beatha alongside Joe Black Ryder and Roger Whelan.

Commemorating the past

A central part of the festival was the commemorative walk to the Famine graveyard where over 3,000 people who perished during the Great Famine are buried. Led by Afri, the walk featured reflections from local historian Anthony Brophy and speeches by Katie Martin, Afri and climate justice communicator, Nandana James. First-year social care students, joined by guests from the Delta Centre Carlow, performed ‘An Gorta Mór’, a song that powerfully captured the significance of the day.

Katie Martin, Coordinator of Afri, said,

“Afri is honoured to partner with SETU for this special annual event, which centres on remembrance and solidarity. This year’s theme, ‘Creating Cultures of Care’, was deeply felt as we reflected on the lives lost during An Gorta Mór. Each person buried here is a testament to a tragic chapter in our history and the lessons we have yet to learn. We honour their lives and heed the call for courage in confronting the structures perpetuating inequity. Through commemoration, music, and shared experiences, we strengthened our bonds with SETU and The Delta Centre and reinforced our commitment to building just and inclusive societies together.”

Katie Martin, coordinator at Afri speaking into a microphone in the Famine graveyard at Féile na Beatha.
Katie Martin, Afri speaking at the event.

Exploring the history of social care education

The second half of the event focused on the premiere of a new documentary, ‘The History of Social Care Education’, created by Dr Denise Lyons, Social Care Lecturer at SETU, and PhD candidate Charlotte Burke. The project was funded by the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) and supported by SETU’s Teaching and Learning Centre. The 45-minute film, produced by RoJnRoll Productions, explored the evolution of social care education in Ireland, and featured insights from Mr Pat Brennan, Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, and third-year social care students, highlighting the pioneering efforts that shaped the profession.

Dr Denise Lyons, Social Care Lecturer at SETU, said,

“The documentary will be available as a resource for students throughout Ireland and available for download from the Social Care Ireland website. The documentary was inspired by the insightful teachings of Pat Brennan, Programme Director of the Kilkenny Programme 1971-1981. Pat’s reflections on the key themes of social care work are still relevant to social care practice and education today.”

Dr Denise Lyons speaking at a podium at Féile na Beatha event
Dr Denise Lyons, SETU speaking at the event.

A lasting impact

The event concluded with a reflection session, where attendees discussed the key themes of the day and how they could apply these lessons in their own lives and communities. Féile na Beatha 2025 served as a powerful reminder that understanding the past is essential to building a future rooted in empathy, solidarity and care.

This article is a repost from www.setu.ie. Please follow this link for further details.

Featured image: Kseniya Rusnak playing the Bandura, the national instrument of Ukraine. Photo by Larysa Karankovich

Food for Thought 2025

Afri

Join us for our annual Food for Thought event this Monday, April 7th from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm at St Mary’s Hall, ATU Mayo!

This year, we’re exploring the vital theme of Peace, Justice, and the Environment. We’ve teamed up with the enthusiastic Third-Year Outdoor Education and History and Geography students from Atlantic Technological University to bring you a truly engaging experience.
We have a vibrant morning planned with thought-provoking discussions and opportunities to connect with fellow participants who care deeply about social justice issues. Share your ideas, learn from others, and become part of a community committed to positive change.

We are delighted to be joined by Catherine Connolly TD for an insightful conversation circle – a chance to hear her perspectives and share your own! We will also have captivating music from the talented The Accidental Rapper and Dylan Swift.

We’d love for you to join us and contribute your valuable insights and perspectives. Please register on Eventbrite here.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Féile na Beatha 2025

Afri

Join Afri and South East Technological University on Thursday, March 27, from 11 am to 2 pm for this remarkable annual festival! This year’s theme, Creating Cultures of Care, prompts us to consider the vital role of care, exploring the profound significance of the past and ways we can forge futures rooted in empathy, solidarity, and support for one another.

Enjoy various engaging and moving events, delving into the intertwined legacies of colonialism and care, challenging us to consider how we honour the past and nurture the future. Through a commemorative walk, music, and the premiere of a thought-provoking documentary, we will explore the profound significance of our past and invite you to consider how we can cultivate a culture of care in our lives and communities.

Event Highlights:

11:00 AM – Launch of the Event in A102

Dr. Eileen Doyle-Walsh, Head of the Faculty of Business and Humanities, will kick off the day with an inspiring message accompanied by beautiful music from Kseniya Rusnak.

11:20 AM – Commemorative Walk to the Famine Graveyard

At the heart of our festival lies the Famine Graveyard, a solemn site where 3,000 souls rest, victims of An Gorta Mór. Led by Afri, we will walk and commemorate those who died or were displaced during this time. Through engaging speakers, including Nandana James, input from a local historian, Anthony Brophy, and song and tree planting, we will consider how caring for one another and the planet embodies the lessons of history. This commemoration also shows how the Famine Graveyard is slowly transforming into a place that not only remembers and honours those who died during An Gorta Mór, but also a space where biodiversity has begun to flourish.

12:40 PM – Launch of Documentary Premiere

Join Dr Denise Lyons and Charlotte Burke at the launch of a powerful new documentary, “The History of Social Care Education.” This critically important documentary explores the history and development of welfare provision in Ireland, specifically looking at the impact of the first social care course in Kilkenny in 1971. Before the screening, we will hear the story of how the documentary came to fruition, as well as insights on the importance of building cultures of care, both locally and globally.

12:50 PM – Documentary Screening

Be among the first to view “The History of Social Care Education.” This powerful 45-minute documentary sheds light on the history of welfare provision in Ireland and how social care education emerged from the inspiration of three adults who wanted to create change in how we cared for vulnerable people in Irish society. This SATLE-funded collaborative project between Dr Denise Lyons, Charlotte Burke and Year 3 students of SETU Carlow Campus, and Mr Pat Brennan, Sr Stanislaus Kennedy and RoJnRoll Productions is not to be missed!

1:40 PM – Reflections, Evaluations, and Closing Music

We will conclude the day with reflections on the themes discussed and how we can embody the lessons of history in our daily lives.

Join us and be part of a transformative experience that honours our past while paving the way for a more caring future.

A conversation with Caoimhe Butterly

Afri
Live from Lesvos, Greece. Friday, February 21st, 2025, 11am-12pm Irish time: Frontlines of Solidarity – Migration, Human Rights, and Solidarity. 
Hosted by IDEA (Irish Development Education Association) in association with Afri, Comlámh, Doras, the Irish Refugee Council, and Uplift.
Free registration but donations welcome to Caoimhe’s choice of refugee solidarity cause.
Free registration at www.tiny.cc/frontlines25 
ABOUT CAOIMHE BUTTERLY
 Caoimhe Butterly (educator, activist & trauma-informed psychotherapist) joins us live from Lesvos island in Greece, where she has worked for periods of the past 11 years with refugee solidarity/ support & Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) networks there. Greece is a place of both transit and in limbo, where refuge-seekers from Afghanistan, Palestine, Congo, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq, Somalia, etc., remain in camps in which both humanitarian support & access to rights remain below the basic. With the militarisation & externalisation of EU borders & prevalent pushbacks, the narratives of those on the move are often made invisible. Caoimhe joins us to speak of some of the stories of those she has worked with, as well as the broader context.

TOM HYLAND MEMORIAL: JANUARY 25, 2025

Afri

A memorial for Tom Hyland will be held in Dublin on Saturday, January 25. Families and friends have organized a Mass at 3pm at the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Ballyfermot. Following the Mass, from 4.30pm, the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign has been invited to contribute to a special remembrance of Tom in the Ballyfermot Community Civic Centre. Tom’s life will be remembered through music, tributes and reflections from family and friends in Ireland and abroad.

‘The Seeds of Time’ fundraiser

Afri

Dear friends and supporters. We would like to share this important fundraiser organised by Afri’s friend, Irish Author and Seedkeeper, Claire O’Grady Walshe. Please read Claire’s appeal below.

Dear friends. Clare here wishing you all well and wanted to share news of an inspiring community response to the critical challenge facing Kenyan farmers.

  • An unjust seed law which criminalised smallholder farmers in Kenya is to be appealed in February 2025.
  • Now 15 brave smallholder farmers and seed producers from 7 counties of Kenya, supported by our wonderful colleagues at Seed Savers Network Kenya, alongside other groups are appealing this unjust law and they have asked that we help shine a light on their case, which has implications far beyond themselves.
  • I was delighted and humbled to learn recently that they are using findings from my PhD research and book in the forthcoming High Court case, which could save their right to save, use and share their seeds and protect their rich diverse agrarian systems of millennia.
  • I am raising money to make a trailer/short film in order to get wider institutional funding for a full length film documentary about this historic and globally important seed case in partnership with Kenyan colleagues and with brilliant Irish and Kenyan film makers.

I recently learned from Kenyan friends that some of my research findings from my PhD and book, will be used in February in a landmark appeal of the seed law of 2012 which criminalised them for saving, sharing and selling their own seeds.

My research had outlined how this law came into being, excluding farmers and civil society and in contradiction of the solemn promise of The Constitution of Kenya 2010.

The Law Society of Kenya have recently joined the case in support of the farmers and underlining the constitutional commitments, which is a great boost.

Working in partnership with Seedsavers Network of Kenya and other colleagues there, we are endeavouring to make a film/documentary about this globally important case to protect seed practices of millennia.

We in Ireland know how the loss of control of robust, diverse seed systems and reliance solely on monoculture crops for commercial markets can lead to horrific consequences, as it did in Ireland in the 1840s. One million of our people starved, and a million emigrated. This loss remains etched in our DNA and cultural memory and informs much of our values since.

The Kenyan farmers know that this case is not only about them. It is about everywhere, where age-old agrarian ecosystems are undermined and corporate colonisation down to the smallest seed now poses a major threat to food security, as it did for Ireland in past times. The Irish starvation is cited across the literature as a salutary warning precisely for this reason.

Working with great Irish filmmakers Jerry O’ Callaghan and Dónal Ó Céilleachair here and wonderful Kenyan documentary maker James Gitonga in Kenya. We will be going to Kenya in the next few weeks and working with the people there to document and tell the story of their work. This is all our shared work and hope for the future.

Your support is hugely appreciated.

Thank you and best wishes.

Clare

You can support the campaign by donating through the GoFundMe page here

Clare O’ Grady Walshe is an Irish author and Seedkeeper. She received her doctorate in politics and international relations in 2018 specialising in Seed Sovereignty and Globalisation.

Clare’s book was nominated by Palgrave for the 2021 Agarwal

Book Prize from the International Association for Feminist Economics

 https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030128692

Clare’s field research in East Africa (Ethiopia and Kenya), including a detailed study of the seed law in Kenya, is being used as evidence in the forthcoming case. She has lectured extensively on Climate, Biodiversity and

Food Politics at Trinity College Dublin, is an elected Member of the Company of Irish Seed Savers Association. She has served as CEO Greenpeace Ireland, Trustee of Greenpeace International, development education coordinator for Afri, Board member of Children in Crossfire, Irish Aid Advisory Committee member and as a member of the Irish Government High Level Task Force on Green Enterprise.

Féile Bríde 2025

Afri

Brigid’s Light: Illuminating Paths of Justice and Solidarity

We are delighted to welcome you to Féile Bríde 2025. Organised in partnership with the Brigidines and Cairde Bríde in the beautiful Solas Bhríde Centre, this gathering is dedicated to exploring and encouraging action on the pressing issues of our time. The event brings together diverse speakers, wonderful musicians, and active community members for a day filled with information and inspiration, punctuated by music and poetry, light lunch, tree planting, and conversation.

The theme, “Brigid’s Light: Illuminating Paths of Justice and Solidarity,” calls on us to reflect deeply on our world’s challenges and honour the spirit of Brigid as a woman who cared deeply for the earth, justice, equality, and peace. The story of Brigid offers a profound lens through which we can understand our present struggles, having offered her father’s most prized possession, a bejewelled sword, to a poor and sick man so he could exchange it for food. Thus, Brigid turned a sword into a ploughshare and transformed a tool of war into nourishment and care. Today, this act of resistance is not only a symbol of hope but a powerful call to confront militarism and the destructive forces that perpetuate genocide, injustice and environmental ruin.

Our incredible contributors will illuminate these challenges and help us understand how to forge pathways of peace and justice. Brigid’s legacy is a stark reminder that we are the ancestors of the future, called to challenge injustice now so future generations may be free. At this moment of collective urgency, we remember that Brigid’s act was not just defiance but one steeped deeply in love and solidarity, as our event is, too.

Register on Eventbrite here

Programme

10:15 Registration
10:50 Opening Music by Emer Lynam and Procession of the Flame of Peace
10:55 Welcome
11:10 Brigid’s Call to Action Today: Defying Militarism and Protecting The Triple Lock – Niamh Ní Briain
11:50 Music – Dee Armstrong, performing songs from her upcoming solo album, Deichtine’s Daughter, accompanied by Lughaidh Armstrong and Gráinne Horan
12:10 Solar Lights and the Work of Development Pamoja – James Hennessy
12:50 Music – Dee Armstrong, accompanied by Lughaidh Armstrong and Gráinne Horan
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Tree Planting
14:15 Pocket Forests: Bringing Biodiversity to Your Doorstep – Catherine Cleary
14:50 Music – Kate Moore
15:00 Solidarity is Key – Raghad Abu Shammala
15:30 Closing Session – Seeds of Hope
16:20 Music – The Resistance Choir

The brochure is available for download here.

(Dis)Placed – The Weight of History

Afri

Date: 25th January 2025

Time: 7.30pm

Location: Glebe House

Register on Evenbrite

Join us in the Boyne Valley to explore themes of poverty, conflict and migration. Drawing upon the ghosts and threads of history, we will examine the Battle of the Boyne and the famine that came sometime later. Current conflicts and injustice will also be explored through the lens of migration and displacement and the impact that this has had on people and the communities involved. Lastly, we will hear readings from the powerful play, “Bassam” (Please see below) , which is based in Palestine, a land that has experienced oppression, violence and conflict for decades. Katie Martin (Afri), Stephanie Kirwan (Meath Partnership) and Fadl Mustapha (Actor, Activist and Theatre Director) will contribute to what promises to be an engaging and emotive event. A Question and Answer/dialogue will be facilitated after the inputs from our guests to maximise audience participation.

“This one-man show is based on the true story of Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian peace activist, whose ten-year-old daughter Abir, was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2007.

Bassam, who served seven years in jail for his activities in the Palestinian resistance movement, co-founded Combatants for Peace in 2005, a non-violent organisation of former Israeli and Palestinians combatants.

Fadl Mustapha, a Palestinian actor, refugee and activist, who lives in Ireland, plays Bassam, a man who wants justice for his daughter but resolutely refuses to go the violent route. The play itself is a Palestinian/Israeli collaboration whose author, Idan Meir, is an Israeli writer and peace activist who now lives in Austria”

Organised by Development Perspectives