Rory Cowan, known for his character in Mrs Brown's Boys, has hit out at those opposing this year’s Eurovision Song Contest being held in Israel, namely singers Christy Moore and Mary Coughlan.
Moore and Coughlan are among some of the Irish artists who will be taking part in a Palestine solidarity concert in the National Stadium the same night as the Eurovision final. Other artists performing at the Palestine - You’re a Vision concert are Donal Lunny, Frances Black and Mick Blake.
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Cowan told the Irish Sun, “What gets me about Christy Moore and Mary Coughlan is that they were earning money and playing gigs in Britain during the Iraq war.
“Hundreds of thousands were being killed, and there was no call for them to boycott Britain at the time or play over in the UK after the invasion.
“You can't do that back then and now say boycott Israel. What about countries who have staged Eurovision in the past like Russia and Azerbaijan who have a terrible record of human rights abuses, yet no one seemed to mind us going there?”
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Meanwhile, Mary Coughlan told the Sun, “I did gigs against the war in Iraq, I was on all the marches. What Rory Cowan doesn't understand is that this is a totally different thing. What the Israelis are doing is pushing the Palestinians off their lands.
“This support for Palestine is a response to what happened in 2014 when the Israelis started bombing Gaza and they haven't stopped.”
Cowen is currently in Tel Aviv for the weekend of Eurovision, although he doesn’t have a ticket to the event.
Calls for the boycott of this year’s Eurovision song contest have intensified in recent months, with RTÉ receiving over 100 emails from members of the public both urging the boycott and objecting it.
Image source: RTÉ
