Sir, – I am heartened to hear and read the stories of support for the Jewish and local community over the renaming of Herzog Park. Adjacent to the park, as noted, are Ireland’s only primary and post primary Jewish ethos schools. Home to an inclusive and diverse student body of many faiths and none.
The park’s name quietly communicates to them that Jewish heritage is part of Ireland’s shared history. Any decision to change it at this time – regardless of motivation – could create the impression that this heritage is negotiable or contingent upon events far beyond Ireland.
Such a perception would be deeply upsetting and discouraging to students and families alike. – Yours, etc,
NATHAN BARRETT,
RM Block
Principal,
Stratford College,
Rathgar,
Dublin.
Sir, – I condemn the attempted renaming of Herzog Park in Dublin.
It is a deeply misguided and hurtful political gesture that targets one of the very few visible markers of Irish-Jewish heritage.
Chaim Herzog died in 1997 – 28 years before the current Gaza conflict. He was born in Ireland, raised in Dublin, and was the son of Ireland’s chief rabbi.
His connection to this country is one of roots, identity and contribution. Attempting to drag his name into a modern conflict he never lived to see is historically illiterate and morally indefensible.
Removing a Jewish-associated name in the present climate – when anti-Semitism is rising across Europe – is not a neutral act.
Whether intended or not, it signals that Jewish heritage is expendable, that Jewish names may be erased to suit political anger and that the community’s history in Ireland can be rewritten.
We have seen this pattern before in history. The tactic of singling out Jewish names or Jewish-linked symbols for removal – based on manufactured associations and political resentment – is not new.
It belongs to an old and dangerous tradition once exploited by propagandists such as Julius Streicher. I am not comparing today’s councillors to those figures, but it retraumatises a small and vulnerable community and has no place in Irish public life.
This issue is deeply personal to me. My grandmother, Anna Marie Gruenberg, was German and a founder member of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, who worked with Kurt Schuhmacher and Willi Brandt.
She was a committed socialist who risked her life in Berlin during the Second World War to protect members of the German Jewish community.
Her family hid Jewish children and passed them off as non-Jewish so they could be safely removed from danger. Members of my family – both Irish and German – fought fascism.
Those who supported this proposal should examine their consciences. They followed an ideology blindly, without regard for the impact on Ireland’s Jewish community. They should apologise without qualification.
Herzog Park honours an Irishman who served his country, represented Ireland internationally, and whose legacy has nothing whatsoever to do with modern Gaza.
Linking the two is a distortion and an injustice to Irish Jewish citizens.
Dublin should be a city that protects minority heritage, not one that erases it.
This proposal was wrong in principle, wrong in fact, and wrong in its impact on a vulnerable community.
It should never have been placed on the agenda. – Yours, etc.
MAURICE DOCKRELL,
Councillor,
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown
County Council,
Dublin.
Sir, –Dublin City Council’s initiative to rename Herzog Park in Dublin might be the impetus needed for more local authorities in the State to reflect on some of the memorials and street names in our cities and towns commemorating those associated with misrule in Ireland down the centuries.
The removal of the statue of Queen Victoria from the precinct of Leinster House in 1948 was a worthy initiative. Even today, 77 years later, Queen Victoria’s name, which conjures up images of famine, evictions, tenant farmers, workhouses and coffin ships, is still in public use.
There are more worthy people and causes we could and should commemorate instead and have all offending imperial iconography removed from public exhibition, including some of our street names.
The roles that generations of Irish women have played in the political, cultural, religious and civic life in Ireland have been immeasurable, but are not sufficiently acknowledged by central government or local authorities. Dublin City Council can begin to redress this misogynistic omission by formally recognising the sacrifices and heroism of Mná na hÉireann.
It is regrettable that in this State we retain buildings, quays and streets memorialising Queen Victoria who reigned in Ireland during the starvation and forced emigration of millions, while ignoring some of the women who fed the hungry. – Yours, etc.
TOM COOPER,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6w.
Talking about immigration
Sir, – I am delighted to read Fintan O’Toole calling for a debate on immigration (“Ireland has two economies, one bourgeois, one proletarian. Both are broken,” December 2nd), based on objective facts rather than one based on anecdotal, barstool information.
Having been an observer of immigration and directly involved in the issue over the past 40 years confronting misinformation and confusion has been a major time-consuming ordeal.
In the 1980s as large numbers of Irish emigrants arrived in London there were headlines about housing and accommodation shortages. Yet, within the Greater London Area there were 250,000 vacant properties.
Probably, a similar situation currently exists in Ireland. The confusion between asylum and economic migration needs constant monitoring and explanation. Let’s get it clear, people do not want to leave home. Just listen to Irish immigrant grief music.
I look forward to an objective debate on the issue. – Yours, etc,
BOBBY GILMORE.
Society of St Columban( SSC),
Navan,
Co Meath.
War and Ukraine
Sir, – Ireland has been welcoming Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently and laying claim to great support for the country subject to an illegal aggressive invasion contrary to international law.
We are a great country for self-congratulation and self-promotion, of course. However, the actual facts tell a different story.
The respected Kiel Institute has the data and it paints a completely different picture, in fact Ireland is at the bottom of the EU league table when it comes to support for Ukraine.
In 2023, similarly sized countries like Denmark provided 3.4 per cent of GDP and smaller Estonia sent 3.2 per cent .
Our support at 0.3 per cent was barely visible even allowing for country size and most of it is through the EU rather than bilateral.
Perhaps the only recognition we should be getting is for hard neck. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McLOUGHLIN,
Clonsilla,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – In the interests of factual reporting, it is incumbent on the media not to refer to “America brokering a peace deal in Ukraine”.
With US president Donald Trump’s aspirational benefits finally out in the open, and Russian president Vladimir Putin demanding lunatic concessions from everyone but himself, nothing could be further from the truth.
The deliberate and calculated actions taken by these two men have caused the deaths and destruction of families, people and property across, Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine and Russia in a shameless pursuit of personal wealth and power.
Their conduct deserves to be described with clarity and brutal honesty, without softening language that risks granting them unearned legitimacy. – Yours, etc,
MARK VEALE,
Bridgetown,
Co Wexford.
Attacks by the US Navy
Sir, – The recent report from the Washington Post that the US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth gave verbal orders to “kill everyone” when the US Navy attacked a “suspected” drug boat in international waters off the Caribbean makes for very difficult reading.
If this report is accurate then it would represent a shocking failure by the US in their respect for both international law, and their respect for due process due to all suspected criminals.
To date 80 people have been killed by the US Navy on the orders of Hegseth and US president Donald Trump. Not one of the people killed in these terrible attacks was given due process in law.
There was no evidence presented that these people were criminals or “narcoterrorists” as Hegseth claims. There was no attempt to arrest them, no attempt to preserve the drugs as evidence of their guilt and no attempt to bring them to trial before a court of law.
In my opinion, this is extra judicial killing of people by the Trump administration and is illegal by US national law, international law and the US military code of conduct.
Considering that Trump just pardoned Honduras’s ex-president Juan Hernandez, a man found guilty in a US court of law, of importing 400 tons of cocaine into the USA, shows that Trump doesn’t care about drugs importation.
It’s about Trump wanting to show how powerful he is to his MAGA base and the world at large.These killings are not normal.
They are an abhorrent abuse of power by an abusive Donald Trump and his disgraceful administration. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL MARTIN,
Dublin.
Coastal erosion
Sir, – I read today that planning permission is being sought for a huge expansion to Europort, Rosslare, Co Wexford.
It will not be possible to get to Rosslare by train soon unless a huge coastal protection job in done from Greystones to Wicklow.
I suggest planners come visit it and have a pleasant hike before this railway disappears altogether. – Yours, etc,
CECIL CLEGG,
Delgany ,
Co Wicklow.
Dysfunctional departments
Sir, – Eamon Ryan (“Jack Chambers needs to tackle the culture issues in his own department,” December 2nd) is correct when he highlights the essentially dysfunctional nature of the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure. When I joined the then Department of Finance in 1975, my superiors were wont to quote, with some relish, the department’s founding scriptural text: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was “no” .”
It is perhaps illuminating that arguably the State’s greatest and most influential civil servant, TK Whitaker, once described the department he eventually headed thus: “What can a finance official say about the obstructionism of finance, its inverted Micawberism, its slowness to see the merits of a case, its maddening questions, its dilatoriness, its blind devotion to precedent, the “dead hand” with which it stifles every initiative?”
It would seem that nothing much has changed in the 70 years or so since that was written. – Yours, etc,
IAN D’ALTON,
Naas
Co Kildare.
Sir, – Judging by his article today, former minister Eamon Ryan seems to have led a sheltered political life if he was unaware of the Department of Public Expenditure’s reputation for baulking at what it sees as wasteful or unnecessary spending of public money.
From the foundation of the State, the Department of Finance has had some of the best brains in the country perfecting the art of saying no to ambitious ministers.
The ethos is best summed up by the time I met the late Bob Curran, one of the original members of Bord Snip, on a hillwalking outing many years ago. While shaking my hand, Bob introduced himself as Bob Curran, otherwise known as the Abominable No Man! – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL FLYNN,
Dublin 13.
End of the line?
Sir, – The decision to effectively mothball DART+ South West –a fully designed, approved and shovel-ready project – is as cynical as it is short-sighted. At a time when the Government claims to prioritise climate action and sustainable transport, it has chosen instead to delay the only major rail investment capable of relieving one of the most congested commuter corridors in the country.
What is equally baffling is the silence from much of the Opposition. A project that would benefit tens of thousands of people in Dublin mid-west and Kildare has been quietly shelved, yet there has been no meaningful political backlash.
When a rail upgrade can disappear without uproar, what hope is there for solving Ireland’s chronic infrastructure failures?
We cannot keep insisting on decarbonisation while funnelling capital into roads and sidelining electrified rail. DART+ South West was ready to go. Its postponement is not a delay – it is a decision to deepen congestion, increase emissions and condemn another generation of commuters to car dependency. – Yours, etc.
KEVIN O’SHEA,
Co Kilkenny.
Dangerous e-scooters
Sir , – Recent reports concerning increased deaths and injuries suffered by children using e-scooters on public roads is neither surprising or unexpected.
The fact is that regulation regarding use of these vehicles is appallingly lax and poorly enforced.
It is a reflection of the incompetence of Government that helmets, lights, reflective jackets, registration and insurance are not mandatory.
They seem unaware or unconcerned that e-scooters can be adjusted to travel at speeds far in excess of legal limits. Is there no concern for those run down and injured or killed by e-scooters?
Enforcement by gardaí is poor to non-existent.
One has only to walk in the vicinity of a secondary school to witness the utter chaos. Most riders use the footpath and the majority are heedless of pedestrians and other road users.
If this chaotic situation is to be reversed then the Government need to act and follow the advice of those most qualified to give it.
It is ludicrous in the extreme to listen to Government Ministers expressing concern about a problem they are responsible for while doing nothing about it. – Yours, etc,
HUGH PIERCE,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.
Taser teaser
Sir, – Brendan Behan once remarked that there was no situation so miserable that it couldn’t be made worse by the arrival of the police. And then they went and invented Tasers. – Yours, etc,
EOGHAN Mac CORMAIC
Gaillimh.
