Marble Hill will Make Waves for Palestine on Mother's Day

Marble Hill will be the setting on Sunday morning for Make Waves for Palestine.

Paddy Browne, originally from Letterkenny and now living in Glen, outside Carrigart, is running the event. He is no stranger to the morning dips, with his social media channels - The Viking Dipper - previously chronicling 365 successive days of sea dips.

Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli troops, in response to an attack by Hamas on October 7.  In its January decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take steps to prevent any acts of genocide in Gaza, but to little avail. 

“As an active member of the swimming community, I thought it would be nice to try and do something for Palestine,” Paddy tells DonegalLive. “There’s marches and protests and petitions, which is brilliant, so I’d just like to do my small part. I’m happy to try and do something.

“I floated the idea of a dip for Palestine online and it got a great response so I've gone ahead and got a date and time set up. The world is silent still over this genocide. Let's show Palestine we care.

“We’re going in for a dip in the sea for two minutes’ suffering, which is nothing in comparison to the suffering that’s going on in Palestine. I picked Mother’s Day because it’s symbolic, there are lots of mothers and children getting slaughtered over there. I saw a passage saying ‘Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as you love yours’ and that resonated with me, so thought Mother’s Day would be a great day to do it.”

The Donegal IPSC (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign) will be joining us, as well as Amnesty Letterkenny, so hopefully we get a good turnout. There are donation links available via Paddy’s Instagram page and there will be collection buckets on the day. Make Waves for Palestine will take place on Sunday, March 10, at 11am at Marble Hill.