March for Jesus Dublin 2025: Follow up parade after Belfast event will take inspiration from words of forgiveness from Erika Kirk - widow of Charlie Kirk

Some 12,000 believers from all across the island are expected to converge on Dublin to take part.

According to March for Jesus, it is “an extravagant worship celebration for Jesus in full public view”.

Beginning in 1987 in London with 15,000 people, it now has 12 million participants in 170 countries.

A parade in Belfast last month attracted some 8000 people.

Both parades have been organised by Pastor John Ahern, from all Nations Church, which has branches in Dublin and Belfast.

He believes the movement can be an effective vehicle for reconciliation in times of local and international tensions.

As an example, he points to the widow of US conservative activist and Christian apologist Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead while speaking at a University of Utah rally earlier this month.

Erika Kirk told a packed Arizona stadium gathered to honour her husband, on Monday, that she held no bitterness for her husband's killer.

"I forgive him," she said. "The answer to hate is not hate."

John adds: "Those words were very much indicative of the reconciliation that we want to promote.

"That is the power of forgiveness. It's the only way forward, because an eye for an eye, like the saying does, will only leave us all blind.”

He has listened to Charlie Kirk for years and "didn't see anything hateful in what he said".

The controversy around him, he said, was that "he was questioning much of the woke agenda".

For him, faith is a unifying force.

"We have over 80 nationalities in our church - a lot of different colors and cultures and backgrounds, but we have one Savior that brings us all together."

At the Belfast event he met people from Kerry, Waterford, the west of Ireland and people from both unionist and republican backgrounds.

"We need to get to the place on this island where we show more respect to each other's traditions without having to constantly demonize them," he adds.

• The March for Jesus in Dublin this Saturday leaves the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm to parade through the city centre to St Stephen’s Green