Irish Left Archive

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Digital collection of political material from the Irish Left.

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Irish Left Archive
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"Cork Girl Meets Arafat"

A 1989 article from Irish Socialist, newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland, on a student's invitation to meet Yassir Arafat for a school project.

A scanned newspaper article reading: Cork girl meets Arafat A lesson in diplomacy could be learned by many of the world’s politicians from a 15-year old Cork girl, Sarah Neary. As part of a school project on peace, Sarah wrote to Yassir Arafat, requesting a meeting to discuss his views on the subject. In answer to her request, Sarah and her teacher, Sister Rita Twomey, received an invitation to travel to Tunisia to meet the PLO leader. After the meeting she said, “He was very friendly, nicer than I expected … When | go back to school I'll tell my friends that they are not terrorists and they want peace.” Sarah added: "I told him I wanted peace, and he replied that he wanted peace, both for Palestinian and Israeli children.” Sister Twomey was also positive on the visit. "It has told us much about the sufferings of the Palestinian people in their home country and about peace in their homeland. We have a responsibility to help so that peace comes to them as soon as possible.”