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Lough Neagh protesters marching through Belfast city centre last year. File photo by Press Eye
THE world’s first ever global climate strike took place on March 15 2019. Since then, climate strikes have become a weekly occurrence around the world, with people taking to the streets to demand urgent climate action every Friday.
A strength in the Fridays for Future movement is that it allows groups to take the concept of climate striking and adapt it to their local context. The core message remains the same, but the strikes look different across countries. These differences are stark north and south of the Irish border.
Having participated in climate strikes in both jurisdictions, the variation in the size of the groups was the first thing I noticed. The Belfast climate strikers have been going for roughly 236 weeks and they tend to draw a small crowd of about four people. Meanwhile, the group outside the Dáil have just completed week 276 and their numbers rarely drop into single figures.
My second observation was the age range of the groups. Where a handful of young people in their early twenties stand outside Belfast City Hall, the Dublin climate strikers are mostly comprised of older people who are either retired or looking towards retirement.
Victoria Ivory (24), who has been a climate activist with Fridays for Future for two-and-a-half years, said she understood why the climate strikes in Dublin appeal to an older age group.
“A lot of them are retired or work part-time now, and they have more time and capacity to take an action every week. It’s difficult for young people to get to the Dáil every Friday,” she said.
“Young people are working, in college, at school.”
In Dublin, a lot of young people are also caught up in insecure housing. “People are travelling longer distances and living further out,” she said.
“There’s not the time for people to come to the Dáil for an hour. That’s why the older generation has stepped up and they can almost hold the fort. They can do this week in and week out and it takes the pressure off younger people.”
Jessica Dunne (19), a climate activist with Young Friends of the Earth, said that the “hugely intergenerational approach has allowed people to move beyond the idea that young people are the only ones that can make a difference”.
She added: “It’s frustrating when all the focus is put on this being a young person’s crisis.”
In Belfast, climate strikes have not taken off in quite the same way. Anna Kernahan (21) and Georgia Allen (20) have been taking part in weekly strikes in the city centre since 2019 and 2020 respectively.
The differences in engagement between Northern Ireland and the Republic isn’t a surprise to them.
“It was slower to start here,” Anna said.
“There was less media engagement and people (were) more hesitant to get involved. I was striking for the first 6 months on my own.”
Add to that poor voter turn-out among young people in the north, as well as political distrust and public apathy.
Anna said that when Stormont was on its two-year hiatus it was “harder for climate action to become real”.
“A lot of people were like what’s the point in striking as there’s no government anyway,” she said.
However, Georgia pointed out that some protests have been widely attended and have attracted a wide range of activists.
“The protests that Friends of the Earth organise, like the recent Lough Neagh protest, have a lot more older people,” she said.
Rosalind Skillen
Juanita Majury, from Join the Dots Together network, is one of two older people who regularly attend the Belfast climate strike. The 67-year-old said other protests have attracted larger numbers, adding that more work needs to be done to raise public awareness.
“There’s been a lot of successful protests in Belfast,” she said.
“When there was talk of changing conditions for bus passes, there was huge turn-out for that, and there’s huge turn-out for Palestine.
“When people are interested in issues, they will come out for issues.
“The challenge is to increase awareness of climate justice and its impacts on all aspects of life.”
Building more intergenerational solidarity would strengthen the climate strikes by increasing numbers and engaging diverse groups.
When former Irish president Mary Robinson endorsed the strikes in Dublin they were taken more seriously and may have encouraged more older people to get involved.
We miss out on so much when generations work in isolation, and climate action could open a pathway for all age groups to work together in meaningful ways. It also serves as a reminder that the climate crisis affects all of us.
From youth groups to retirement groups, we need everyone on board.
Rosalind Skillen is an environmental activist and writer @rosalindskillen