Ireland’s inverted antisemitism in action
My Jewish-curious journey started off when I was a young, earnest evangelical, in the late 1970s. I’d attended no Holocaust memorials but had accepted Israel embassy invitations to some “birthdays” for the State of Israel.
When Holocaust Education Ireland announced their event for January 26th this year, I applied (slightly late) for a place. The Holocaust Memorial event had booked the large Round Room in Dublin’s Mansion House. It’s website states there are 500+ seating places available for receptions and / or award ceremonies.
In my application to attend, I naively stated I am Ireland’s only Times of Israel blogger. However, their email reply stated the event had “reached capacity” and I could watch the livestream instead. On a video I saw about 30 empty seats at the rear of the large reception room. Did my pro-Israel credentials frame their reply, I wonder?
Plans for President Higgins to speak at the ceremony got announced in December 2024. Some of Ireland’s Jewish leaders said he was an “inappropriate” pick for the event, because of his “grave insensitivity to Irish Jews.”
Higgins’ dismissal of Jewish concerns about rising anti-semitism in Ireland was telling. Ireland’s president dubbed such comments as “a PR exercise” – hardly a diplomatic or presidential use of language.
That rebuttal alienated Irish Jews from Higgins’ being nominated as “keynote” speaker at the Holocaust Memorial event. The government and the Holocaust charity then rode roughshod over Jewish concerns. So much for the loud and proud Irish government policies about diversity and inclusion…
Higgins’ loquacious speech was seemingly written for an academic setting. It had little evident empathy, and instead, was an unremitting flow of semi-lyrical, tick-box blunders. His out-of-place, politically-pungent gut-punches were far from being contextually-accurate.

During one section of Higgins’ surreal speech, six Jewish attendees turned their backs in an act of silent protest. Video footage shows one of the silent protesters getting dragged out of the event.*
It was very shocking to witness, and would remind thoughtful people of footage from other fascist eras – when Judenfrie “justice” got summarily expedited in Aryan public arenas.
Curiously, outside the Memorial event, there was no agitprop from the ever-vocal pro-Pally patriots. Surely none of that foreign fascist faction have suddenly got sympathetic to Semites, have they?
The previous day though, those people proudly paraded in Dublin, emboldened enough to publicise Palestinian terrorist organisations with impunity. Why then were they so shy to show up outside this particular event? Surely it wasn’t out of ethnic, religious respect for what most Arabs see as the “hoax Holocaust”. Might the president’s script have got leaked to the pro-Palestinian leaders, thus encouraging them to stay away?
Whatever the reason for that miraculous no-show, we will soon see who’s smirking at Ireland’s inversion of anti-Semitism. Trump being pro-Israel might well growl back at the Irish show of “fealty” and “friendship”.
Traditionally on Patrick’s Day, a crystal cut-glass bowl of shamrocks is handed over to Potus by an Irish government minister. You never know though, Trump’s fingers might be still a little bit greasy from his beloved Big Mac happy meal… Oops! The glass bowl dropped, scattering shamrocks all across the White House carpet.
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How am I as a Jew being kicked out of my own event?
Protesters removed from Holocaust memorial event during President’s speech
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41561824.html