The Republic of Ireland prime minister & 3rd Irish president,

Eamon DeValera (public domain)

There have been a depressing number of discriminatory, so-called “anti-Zionist” speeches and policies in Ireland in recent years. These have come from both government members and mainline media. The Hamas propaganda “big lie” has taken firm root in our country. Contemporary Ireland is a “cold house” for our minority-diverse, Jewish demographic.

But it wasn’t always like this. Honestly. Once, there were a series of positive contacts between the onetime guerrilla-founders of the Irish Republic, and the onetime guerrilla-founders of  Israel.

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* There are far more bonds between Ireland and Israel than differences. We have both fought for and won our freedom. We have both sought to revive an ancient language and an ancient culture. And we have both faced the economic difficulties of a small poor nation…”

– Robert Briscoe, Ireland’s first Jewish politican.

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In 1912, Arthur Griffith, newspaper editor and politician & founder of Sinn Féin, the republican party, worked with Jews in Ireland, especially if they supported his cause. (Having said that, Griffith resented British Jewish press barons, who supported England in South Africa and opposed the French government during the Dreyfus affair).

When the first Irish Free State government was formed in 1922, the first Jewish-Irish politician, Robert Emmett Briscoe, was a significant political presence. Previously, he regularly spoke for the Sinn Féin cause at public meetings …and was adamant that being a “Hebrew” did not alter his Irish-ness or lessen his patriotism. Later, he “emphatically” denied that “the people of Ireland, or the present government of Ireland have ever been antisemitic.”

Robert Briscoe (public domain)

Briscoe played an active part in the 1916 Irish republican movement. He was a member of the Irish Republican Army and its political wing, Sinn Fein. His IRA roles were in arms-and-ammunition procurement and transport. Later he was a member of Michael Collins’ personal staff, and went on to become a founding member of Fianna Fáil, and the first Jewish politician here but never held ministerial or secretarial rank.

But typically, an antisemitism accusation crept into Ireland from France in 1932, from the publisher of ‘Le Figaro’ (a conservative broadsheet) and L’Ami du Peuple (a working class red-top newspaper). Both French newspapers warned about the “threat” that ‘political Judaization’ posed to French culture. Editor Francois Coty, an anti-Semite, intermittently conducted vigorous campaigns against the Jews and spread the conspiracy myth of international Jewish finance and Jewish aspirations for world domination.

Then Coty also spewed his grotesque bile on Ireland’s lone Jewish government member in a predominantly Catholic country. He falsely charged ‘that Briscoe was a member of an extreme faction who condemned Collins and had him assassinated’. That public and outrageous slur temporarily put a target on Briscoe’s back. Had that blood libel been believed, he would probably have been murdered by zealous Irish republican supporters, such was the political volatility of the Irish Civil War era. (Collins was an Irish revolutionary soldier and a leading figure in Ireland’s struggle for independence. Murdered in 1922, he became an icon in Irish republican history).

Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Eamon de Valera – was prepared to be unprejudiced towards Briscoe in very critical anti semitic times. However, during WW2 de Valera didn’t seem able to expedite any practical solutions to help save any Jewish refugees into Ireland.

Was it DeValera’s reluctance to act for those imperiled refugees that propelled Briscoe into the political orbit of Vladimir Jabotinsky, radical leader of the New Zionist Organisation? Jabotinsky advocated confrontational guerrilla-tactical approaches against the British Mandate administration, to secure a Jewish national Home in Palestine. That methodology was similar to the early actions of the IRA in Ireland and England.

Briscoe’s dual allegiances, to both de Valera and Jabotinsky, brought about their meeting. In 1938 Jabotinsky made it clear to de Valera that he would only accept an independent Jewish state… on both sides of the River Jordan.

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“You know how interested I am in your people; and how long I have wanted to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I’ll go now if you’ll go with me. You can show me the ropes and bring me to the right people. On the spot we can judge for ourselves many things…”

– deValera to Briscoe

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Was de Valera a firm friend of Israel? To those who would say no, we must remember that he visited Israel with Briscoe in 1950; he was on good terms with Israel President, Chaim Herzog, having been friendly with, Chaim’s father, Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, Isaac Herzog. But his mistaken “diplomatic” move in visiting the Third Reich embassy to express condolences on Hitler’s suicide was an unfortunate counterbalance.

Éamon de Valera’s Relationship with Robert Briscoe: A Reappraisal by Kevin McCarthy (Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 25) suggests interesting nuances about their political quid pro quo. All-in-all deValera comes across like the proverbial ‘curates egg’ – “good in parts” towards the Jewish cause.  Todays anti-Israeli atmosphere in Ireland is far more judgmental, sectarian and mean minded.

Looking at contemporary Ireland, what would Briscoe make of the Occupied Territories Bill, sponsored by the Sinn Fein, who he once untiringly supported? And what credence would he give to Fianna Fáil’s zealous “anti-Zionist” tropes, coming from the party he co-founded? He also might wonder why are Ireland’s ‘social liberals’ so silent in the face of pungent, spittle-laden politicians’ speeches.

If Briscoe were alive today, he would belong to an even smaller minority demographic. Would he even be “allowed” to stand for elections in these febrile, fascist times?

Jewish, Christian and broad minded Bible readers might draw parallels with Daniel’s challenging political career in Babylon. They would recall the spectacular event when Balthasar feasted, mocking God and oppressing righteous Jewish hostages in his court circle.

It took the weird uncanny event of an invisible hand writing on a wall of his banquet feast room, to bring that king to his senses, to honour God and to deal justly with Daniel and his cohorts.

‘God sent the hand that wrote on the wall, and this is what is written: mene, teqel, and peres. This is what the words mean:

Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don’t add up.

Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don’t weigh much.

Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians.’

– Daniel 5:26 – 28

Might some of that Torah prophecy have more than metaphorical relevance in the Irish context? Time will tell just how resilient our democracy really is towards the circa 2,500 Jews still living in Ireland.

Perhaps deValera’s ecumenical attitude and humane empathy might infuse our consciences, our politics and our very negative national discourse more than we have witnessed than in the recent past…

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* Zionists looked to Irish history by Dr. Aidan Beatty

https://www.irishecho.com/2016/7/zionists-looked-to-irish-history

A long and oddly intertwined history’ – Irish nationalism and Zionism

by Dr. Aidan Beatty

https://www.theirishstory.com/2013/01/23/a-long-and-oddly-intertwined-history-irish-nationalism-and-zionism/