Mural in Northern Ireland
Mural in Northern IrelandiStock

Lauren Charm Tenenbaum is an ardent Zionist and author of Please Don't Feed The President: A First Lady's Plea For Her Nation's Help To Curb The Foodie Incumbent's Appetite On The Campaign Trail, Lest He Becomes A Glutton For Punishment

Of all the nations of our world to have had a determined 'blind eye' to the horrors perpetrated upon Israel by the terrorist entity Hamas on October 7, 2023, Ireland, has chosen the lonesome road insinuating the ugliness of antisemitism inward and outward, to the point where the once beautiful Gael is now unrecognizable.

In a January 28, 2025 article in The Telegraph by Ruth Dudley Edwards, titled Ireland's President Has Shamed His Nation: What Is Ireland's Problem With Jews?", the author says "Ireland is now seen as the most anti-Semitic country in the European Union" further suggesting "The low-level antisemitism I remember from my Irish youth has blossomed latterly into shocking Jew hatred."

If we were to pinpoint one of many issues of which to take Ireland to task today, let us begin with the Republic's President Michael D Higgins, who, she says, since 2011, has been "So critical of Israel at every opportunity, and so vocal in his support for its enemies, that Ireland's Embassy to Israel was closed down due to making the life of Israel's Ambassador to Ireland Dana Erlich, unbearable."

Note that Higgins has become besties "with a lack of criticism for Iran's Islamic militancy, nor has he taken a moral issue against the fervor where Hamas and Hezbollah flags fly over Dublin without impunity." In fact, we are told that in "the fifteen minute speech at the Holocaust Memorial service in Dublin to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Higgins chortled lamenting about the thousands searching for relatives in the rubble of Gaza where there has been such a heavy price paid. This was described by Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar as a 'Cheap, Despicable Provocation'. Is there no propriety to be found anymore?

To gauge where such hatred first reared its ugly headalong the hills of Tara, it's important to discern the history of the Jews in Ireland. Tamar Fox of
myjewishlearning.com writes of "The People of The Book On The Emerald Isle, where The 1979 Annals of Inisfallen mentions that originally, there were five merchants from Normandy who came to Ireland, but their admission into the country was restricted. During the 12th and 13th centuries, any Jews who did manage to find a life in Ireland had to leave when Britain expelled their Jews in 1290. in the 15th century, there were a few Jews from Spain and Portugal who managed to find something of a safespace in Ireland, from the Inquisition. However, for 300 years, there was no full- fledged Jewish community to have made Ireland their haven."

In the 1700s, a synagogue closed when Catholic missionaries were successful in converting Jews. By 1790, there were seven Jews living in Limerick City, and a shortlist of Lithuanian Jewish wine importers arrived in in 1878. Fast forward to 1904, when a pogrom, the verbage cleaned up as an economic boycott, was instigated by the Catholic priest Father John Creagh, and featured assaults, stone throrwing and intimidation against the Jewish Community, lasting til 1906. The pogrom is said to have been fomented from the fire and brimstone hatred at his Sunday Sermon, firing up his flock with such vitriol as "Jews had come to Limerick to fasten themselves on us like leeches," aimed at harassed Jewish shopkeepers.

Note: Creagh was promoted by Pope Benedict XV in 1914 as the Vicar Apostolic of Kimberely, Western Australia. In 1937, the Irish Constitution assured Jews Freedom from Discrimination as a minority faith, but when the International Conference in 1938 was held at Evian-Les-Bains regarding Europe's own refugee problem, the Irish Representative Frank T. Cremins lamented that "Ireland was having hard enough times sustaining its own native population, and was unable to withstand the influx of immigration as Jews do not become assimilated with the native population like other immigrants, and there is a danger any big increase in their numbers might create a societal problem."

While Ireland was considered a neutral country, not a participant in the conflict in WWII, it denied refuge to Jews during that time. But while the early Jews of Limerick bore surnames such as Ginsberg, Jaffe, Weinrock, Goldberg, and William Annyas was Ireland's First Jewish Mayor in 1555, Gerald Goldberg was Lord Mayor of Cork in 1977, and Robert Briscoe was Dublin's First Jewish Mayor,

The history of Jews in Ireland then, lends itself to question why and how the early acts of antisemitism noted above, again gained entree to fester in modern times.

Megan Specia, in her article Tracing The Deep Roots of Ireland's Support For Palestinians(The New York Times, December 2, 2023), writes, "In Ireland, support for Palestinian civilians runs deep, rooted in what many see as a shared history of British colonialism and the experience of a seemingly intractable and traumatic conflict which in Ireland's case, came to a close with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Lawmakers across Ireland's political spectrum were among the first in Europe to call for the protection of Palestinian civilians and denounce the scale of Israel's response since the October 7, 2023 Massacre. British officials have drawn their own parallels between the Irish and the Palestinian Arabs. Ronald Stors, who was Governor of Jerusalem from 1917-1926 wrote in his memoir if enough Jewish people moved to Palestine, it could form for England, a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism".

Ireland today, has a population of 5.3 million, not including the Republic's 2,557 Jewish citizens, according to the U.S. Department of State's statistics of 2016, half of which are Israelis employed by multinational corporations. There are three Congregations in Dublin (2 Orthodox, one of those Chabad, and 1 Progressive) and 1 Orthodox Shul in Belfast, Northern Ireland. While the Holocaust is deemed "A mandatory part of Ireland's School Curricula", at the same time, a fervent hostility has seemed to permeate throughout God's little 20,860,800 acres that make up the Republic..

According to Wikipedia, in 1980 Ireland was the first European Union member state to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state. In 1999, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahearn spent two days in Gaza visiting terrorist extraordinaire Yasser Arafat and the Jabaliya Refugee Camp, in what appeared to be his endorsement of Arafat's brand of terror against Israel, the only Democracy in the entire Middle East.

In 2019, Irish imports from Israeli amounted to between 500,000 and 1,500,000 euros, as Ireland has a $1B trade surplus with Israel, exporting more than $1.2B to the country in 2018 alone. According to the site gov.ie, on May 28, 2024, a press release from the Department of The Taoiseach, stated that Palestine would be considered a Sovereign Independent State with Full Diplomatic Relations between Dublin and Ramallah. Additionally, wikipedia.com offers a history of Ireland's notorious Occupied Territories Bill (The Control of Economic Activity In The Occupied Territories) essentially a BDS Bill that would criminalize trade with and economic support for what it terms "illegal settlements" in territories it considers as deemed occupied under International Law.
Fines up to 250,000 euros and 5 years imprisonment are suggested penalties for such criminality. The bill would ban any goods or services produced, even partially, even in the Golan Heights (whose Israeli sovereignty is recognized by the USA) or by Israelis who travel even temporarily beyond the Green Line. Considering Ireland is a tax haven for many tech companies, the legislation has the potential to encourage these firms to relocate out of Israel. While the Bill has yet to pass since it was brought to the table in both the Seanad (Upper House) and the Dail (The Lower House), independent Senator Frances Black stated that "trading in 'settlement' goods sustains injustice."

Better heads know the injustice is the Bill itself. Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail, The Green Party, Social Democrats, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Fine Gael Party members have all endorsed this venal anti-Israel Bill, which does more harm than good.

Why would Ireland, which has risen from the Judeo-Christian ethos of goodness and tolerance, instead attempt to enjoin an unholy alliance with those who promote and revel in terrorism?