Review of the Year 2024: January - Mass rallies as Storm Isha makes landfall
Thousands of brave souls from across the north west and beyond started the New Year in bracing fashion as they gathered at beaches from Malin Head to Culdaff to Benone before running into the icy waters to raise funds for charities across the region just as the first babies of 2024 were being delivered at Altnagelvin Hospital.
The horrific scenes emanating from Gaza led to further mass protests in Derry and elsewhere, and sparked early calls from the IPSC, Bloody Sunday Trust and Archbishop Eamon Martin among others for nations to band together investigate potential war crimes and genocide in Gaza, with calls for Ireland to join South Africa in its planned genocide case against Israel.
Following a winter of discontent, January saw one of the largest mass strikes ever witnessed in Derry as thousands of public sector workers across numerous sectors gathered together to say ‘enough is enough’.
Workers from 15 trade unions linked arms and marched through snow and ice from various points to the rallying point at Guildhall Square, where Mayor Patricia Logue stated this was ‘the single biggest day of industrial action in a generation’.
Elsewhere, Jason Smyth proved a hit on Dancing with the Stars, Storm Isha wreaked quite a bit of havoc.
The shocking extent of attacks on health care workers locally was laid bare when it emerged that almost 400 episodes of violence and abuse were recorded in just three months.
And there were poignant scenes at the end of the month as relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday led commemorations, with a key focus on global injustice and the atrocities in Palestine.