The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity campaign (IPSC) have announced that a summit set to take place in Croke Park by US software firm Red Hat has been cancelled after reports emerged of the company’s links to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
This news comes after heavy criticism from former and current Gaelic footballers, including David Hickey and Michael Dara MacAuley, and the Irish public, who expressed outrage that a summit be held at Croke Park for a firm “deeply complicit in Israel’s genocidal onslaught in the Gaza strip”.
Red Hat have since updated their website announcing a postponement of the summit, saying that “a new date and location will be announced when confirmed”.
While the announcement appears to indicate it was a decision made by Red Hat, IPSC have said that it was ultimately the GAA responsible for the cancellation amid mounting public and internal pressures.
IPSC’s Campaign National Chairperson Zoë Lawlor commented on the news, by saying the group “very much welcomes this news and commends all who campaigned for the cancellation and contacted the GAA”.
“It would have been unconscionable for an event hosting a company which provides material support to the Israeli military to be held anywhere in Ireland, not to mind in Croke Park,” Lawlor said.
Various groups affiliated with the GAA also applauded the decision to cancel the event.
Michael Doherty of Gaels Against Genocide, a Palestine solidarity group, called the announcement a “victory for the collective efforts of Gaels and Palestinian activists in Ireland in preventing a company that is complicit in genocide in Gaza from holding a summit at Croke Park”.
Doherty expressed that this victory should encourage activists across the world: “If we exert enough collective pressure in boycott campaigns and protests, we can be successful.”
Dr David Hickey, six-time consecutive winner of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, who is also an outspoken member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, said he was “very happy and relieved” at the decision to cancel the event, saying that “the GAA has stood up and let itself be counted on the side of humanity, no matter the cost”.
This is not the first call to cancel events or sever ties with Red Hat in Ireland. Staff and students of the South East Technological University (SETU) have been demanding that the university sever its links to Red Hat.
Staff in the university in the last year have said: “Red Hat is directly involved in supporting and enhancing the Israeli military apparatus, an apparatus that is committing war crimes before our very eyes.”
Since October 2023, the ongoing genocide in Gaza has left over 40,000 people dead. It has also triggered many calls by the Irish public for universities and companies to completely divest from Israeli organisations and firms.
College announced its intention to completely divest from Israel in May.
