Sally Rooney faced considerable backlash for her continued support of Palestine Action, a group accused of terrorism by the U.K. government. After publishing an op-ed in the Irish Times, Rooney pledged to donate her royalties to the organization, which has been involved in non-violent protests. The intense response to her statements and actions contrasts with the relatively muted responses seen when other Irish citizens face repression abroad. This situation reflects deep divisions over political expression surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the U.K.
We have reported Sally Rooney to the Terrorism Police is the type of thing you'd imagine reading on Twitter in 2020, hours after the Hulu and BBC adaptation of Normal People dropped and everyone was reckoning with Paul Mescal's thighs for the first time.
Earlier this summer, the U.K. government banned Palestine Action, labeling the group a terrorist organization. More than 400 people were arrested at protests on August 9, with the most arrests in a single operation in the past decade.
Rooney's fiction is often met with a degree of critical frenzy and public scrutiny, but this op-ed - though consistent with her political beliefs - has been subject to an outsize response, labeling her a terrorist and deriding her for using government money (via the BBC) to support Palestine Action.
Now that the jurisdiction in question is located in Northern Ireland, Rooney suggests that the response of the Irish government to its citizens should reflect that melting pot of identity.
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