David Vance SubstackRead More
In just one week, the Irish Government and its agencies have demonstrated their absolute hatred of Israel. This is a country brimming in anti-Semitism and we need to call it out.
Here I talked about the controversy that erupted with Herzog Park in Dublin’s Rathgar suburb. This was a space named in 1995 after Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president and a Belfast-born son of Ireland’s first chief rabbi. On December 2, Dublin City Councillors, led by a chorus of Sinn Féin members, proposed stripping the name and rechristening it “Free Palestine Park.” The motion, which accused Herzog of wartime atrocities without evidence, drew swift condemnation from Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder as a “shameful erasure” of Jewish history. Though withdrawn after “procedural errors”, (aka International condemnation from the USA!) The debate exposed rampant hatred of Israel.
Adding fuel to the anti-Semitic fire, Ireland’s state broadcaster RTÉ announced on December 4 its boycott of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. It cited Israel’s participation amid the Gaza conflict as “unconscionable.”
RTÉ is funded largely by public licence fees, but it will neither compete nor air the event, joining Spain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia in protest. This marks a historic rupture for the contest, where Ireland holds a record seven wins. Mind you, it last won in 1996, last century! Still, what’s another year,
Meanwhile, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties —a taxpayer-supported NGO acting as a quasi-state watchdog on rights—lodged a formal complaint on December 4 against Microsoft. It accuses the tech giant of unlawful data processing via its Azure cloud, allegedly aiding Israeli Defense Forces in Palestinian surveillance and strikes. It demands the Irish Data Protection Commission halt operations, framing Microsoft’s Israel ties as complicit in “war crimes.”
Were all this not bad enough, Irish Ambassador Sonya McGuinness has publicly clashed with Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar at a Jerusalem event!
McGuinness rebuked Sa’ar’s criticism of the park renaming as “antisemitic,” retorting, “You are ill-informed, Minister,” and decrying Israel’s “weaponising” of antisemitism to silence Gaza critiques. Sa’ar countered that Ireland’s “virus of antisemitism” required external pressure to combat, linking it to delayed government responses. Amid the uproar, Irish leaders doubled down on their denial.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin rejected U.S. Senator Jim Risch’s “hateful, anti-Semitic path” label as “appalling,” affirming Ireland’s anti-antisemitism credentials. Former President Michael D. Higgins dismissed similar claims by Israel’s ambassador as a “PR exercise,” insisting, “Irish people are not antisemitic.”
Irish people may or may not be antisemitic but the Irish establishment is positively marinated in it! Ireland has 2,500 Jews and one can only imagine their alarm at the rising tide of officially approved anti-Semitism.
