By Aidan Quirke

A Tralee ‘Gig for Gaza’ on Wednesday night starred local Mia Saleh with a powerful speech on her experience of being a Palestinian, a place that she has yet to visit.

The Killarney resident is daughter of Mohammed Saleh and Fatima Al Khateeb, who run The VIP Turkish Barbers on Glebe Lane.
Up to 300 people from Kerry attended the concert in St John’s Church, Ashe St. Tralee to show solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Mia, who is just 15 years old, took to the stage to give a speech detailing her lived experience and how her parents arrived as refugees to Ireland.
“When my parents first arrived to Ireland as refugees they had no papers so they had to go to the Palestinian ambassador and told him that they were refugees from Palestine.
They got papers eventually but, in the paper(s), it stated that we had no right to go to go back to our homeland Palestine to visit we couldn’t go to the place we are from,” said Mia.
The youngster held a rapt audience for 10 minutes as she detailed how she as a child had to act differently from other children.
“At a young age I always saw children messing around and playing but I could never do the same as if I did anything wrong people will judge us, ‘people won’t see anything but the fact that I wear a hijab’ is what my mom would always say,” Mia said.

The confident teenager, spoke with hope and belief, that she will return to Palestine one day.
“I will return home and so will all the families and refugees that were kicked out, we will go back to a free and peaceful Palestine,” Mia said to a thunderous round of applause for her speech.

Over €5,000 was raised on the night for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fun and was organised by Tralee local arts group, nonfaction, in collaboration with the Kerry branch of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Group.
The event also featured Kerry and national musicians. The headline act was rising folk star John Frances Flynn along with Tralee native Teresa Galvin, singer songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances and Limerick spoken work artist, Dyrt.

Nationally, ‘Gigs for Gaza’ and other events are happening nationwide, another concert for Kerry will be announced in the New Year