When Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh was 12 years old she came across a pamphlet about the killing of Majella O’Hare by a British army officer. “It was her age, the fact that nobody had been held accountable, and the circumstances – she was walking along a country road with a group of other children, going to Confession at the local chapel – that particularly outraged my convent schoolgirl sensibilities.” When she went to her mother in tears and asked how such a terrible thing could happen. Her mother’s response to her young daughter was: “Do something about it”. And do something she did. After first studying languages, she became a paralegal for a London human rights firm before being offered a position as a legal observer on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. She quickly became recognised as a fiercely intelligent barrister, tactically brilliant, and utterly committed to her clients, advocating for marginalised groups and addressing issues such as freedom of expression, anti-terrorism law and police accountability. She was the only woman barrister to defend one of the ‘Colston Four’, four protesters who toppled a statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. In January 2024, she brought South Africa’s case against Israel for its ongoing assault on Palestine. She described Israel’s genocide as “the first in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real-time, in the desperate but so far vain hope that the world might do something”. For her dedication to defending human rights for all cultures and for her courage and passion to fight for justice no matter how great the challenge, Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh is our Inter- national Woman of 2024.
