Sally Rooney
WHILE ARTISTS here and elsewhere have sensed the changing temperature around the Gaza genocide and started to speak up – even Bono and Bob Geldof felt it was okay to jump on the bandwagon – it will not surprise many that it is Sally Rooney who has really upped the ante. Her provocative article last weekend in the Irish Times made it crystal clear where she stands but it will also have made uncomfortable reading for the Micheál Martin et al.
Rooney’s IT article was headlined “I Support Palestine Action”, which refers to a group that is proscribed as a terrorist organisation across the Irish Sea and which the Irish author has now committed to supporting with “the proceeds of my work”, including income from BBC adaptations.
The reaction from the British state has been swift, with Downing Street announcing that anyone who funds the banned Palestine Action risks committing a terrorist offence.
Intriguingly, the scribbler noted: “My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets.”
This comment (“at least for now”) may refer to the possibility that Rooney’s next oeuvre might not be allowed to be printed in the UK but maybe Sally is toying with the idea of boycotting UK publishers herself. She has form in this arena, given action taken when her last novel was published.
Back in 2021,when Beautiful World, Where Are You came out, Rooney refused to sell the Hebrew translation rights to an Israeli publisher (Mordan) on foot of her “solidarity” with the Palestinian people and a desire to support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
While the attention around Sally’s recent interventions have focused on Israel and now the UK, it is Ireland that features rather significantly, as it did again last weekend. The writer put the boot into the Government here for remaining silent on Irish citizens being arrested in London for supporting Palestine Action, in contrast to the situation where Irish people are arrested “under authoritarian regimes elsewhere”.
She also asked how the state can criticise the ongoing genocide but keeps schtum when “its nearest neighbour funds and supports that genocide”.
Last year, when lips were generally buttoned in large sectors of the artistic community, Rooney launched a blistering attack (again in the pages of the IT) targeting Joe Biden’s policy but also highlighting the Irish Government’s two-faced approach of condemning Israel while playing footsie with the US. “This way, our Government can bask in the moral glow of condemning the bombers, while preserving a cosy relationship with those supplying the bombs.”
