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A 50-METRE-LONG hand-knitted blanket created by the Craftivism for Palestine collective will be displayed in Omagh this weekend as part of a national day of action highlighting the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) Omagh branch said it is honoured to host the installation, which will be on display along Drumragh Avenue from 1pm on Saturday. The event forms part of a nationwide action taking place under the theme ‘There Is No Ceasefire’.
Volunteers are being invited to assist with holding the blanket in place during the display, which is expected to last approximately 30 minutes.
Measuring 50 metres in length and 1.6 metres in width, the blanket is made up of 2,900 individual six-inch ‘granny squares’.
Organisers say each square represents ten Palestinian children killed in Gaza since October 2023.
The project was conceived by Craftivism for Palestine founders Anna Doyle and Niamh Bonner as a visual representation of the scale of child deaths in Gaza, and as a protest against what organisers describe as the Irish Government’s failure to enact the Occupied Territories Bill.
Ms Doyle said contributors were sought nationwide after she contacted libraries and craft groups across all 32 counties, as well as through social media.
“We received squares not only from across Ireland but also from countries including Venezuela, Canada, Pakistan, Greece, Germany and England,” she said.
A core group of around ten crafters, aged from their 50s to mid-80s, met approximately 15 times over five weeks in Dublin to assemble the blanket. Based on estimates provided by organisers, around 4,100 hours of work went into completing the piece.
According to Craftivism for Palestine, the blanket symbolises both the lives lost and the resilience of the Palestinian people.
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