Many in Ireland’s Jewish community feel under siege from various parts of Irish society. Toxic and unbalanced narratives and criticism of Israel have long crossed red lines to become overt antisemitism no longer thinly disguised.

Last week Ireland’s state funded National Concert Hall, in an antisemitic act of censorship, despicably and indefensibly canceled a booked private Magen David Adom Ireland fund raising charitable event which included a staged reading of the play October 7.  Actors, in the words of those caught up in the tragedy, were to narrate their factual experiences and what they saw on that terrible day. The NCH, which had previously cancelled and then reinstated the event, had likely been lobbied by pro Palestinian activists to cancel the event a second time but offered no public explanation for its conduct. The cancellation violated its own published” Customer Action Plan” which pledges “ to ensure the right to equal treatment… and accommodate diversity”, not to discriminate on grounds “ of religious belief” and “ to promote staff awareness of equality and diversity” and “ deliver a quality service with courtesy and sensitivity”. All proved to be meaningless words.

Too many in Ireland and, in particular within its literary, music and  arts world, choose to ignore the barbarity and abductions of October 7 and depict the horrors of that day as legitimate “ resistance”, a depiction that has rapidly become  normalised throughout various strands of Irish society and academia and among too many within Irish politics.

On Monday evening last, five months after the failed attempt to rename Dublin’s Herzog Park,  Dublin’s Lord Mayor publicly apologised to the Jewish community for” the flawed manner and administrative failures” that occurred within the Council but not for the toxic debate in the Council chamber on the issue. Some believe the issue has now gone away but the temporarily halted renaming of the park, adjacent to Ireland’s only Jewish primary and secondary school, remains on the political agenda. This  Sunday April 19 “Irish Sport for Palestine“  is........

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