RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 1904, Limerick’s Jewish community was devastated by an infamous pogrom that saw them largely driven from the city. The words that catalysed this pogrom come as no surprise to anyone: the Jews, said Father John Creagh (who kick-started the activity), are usurers, freemasons, Christ-killers.

But okay, that was 1904. Things have moved on, right? Certainly, modern Ireland is more accepting of homosexuals and has liberalised attitudes towards women. It’s not quite the same story for one group though. That’s right, the Jews. The JC reports that in a new study by sociologist-priest Father Micheál Mac Gréil, twenty-five percent of Irish people wouldn’t allow Israelis to become Irish citizens, and eleven percent of Irish men and women wouldn’t allow any Jew from taking up citizenship. Forty percent of Irish people wouldn’t allow a Jew into their family.

All of this is of course shocking, but the most telling statistic is this: within the 18-25 age grouping, the percentage of people who couldn’t handle a Jew being in their family was higher at forty-six percent. These figures surely act as a damning indictment against the indoctrination of students by that unhealthy cocktail of Islamists, leftists and ‘liberals’. The Irish intelligentsia and liberalculturati are the same folks as the Islington social oligarchs who saw Arafat as the new Gandhi and Sharon as the new Hitler. Every corner of Irish culture is poisoned by this vile anti-Semitism.

It’s hardly even worth saying that young people are more anti-Israel. Anti-Israel activity on British campuses has already been well documented, but at least in the United Kingdom we have some sort of history of (at least marginal) support for Israel. In the past, however, as in the present, Ireland has been vehemently anti-Israel politically and culturally. Indeed, it is the only issue other than appetite for more accession of sovereignty to the EU that truly unites the vast majority of Irish politicians. Ireland, for example, was the last EU country to grant permission for an Israeli embassy – in 1993.

Where does all this hatred come from? Are my compatriots Nazi sympathisers? Has Ireland been taken over by a radical Islam that makes Ian Paisley look as harmless as Christine Bleakley? No, the truth is that anti-Semitism in Ireland has a long history.

In the old days, it came from (as it did across Europe) an extreme Catholicism. Latterly, anti-Semitism has found its provenance from Ireland’s consistently pro-Palestinian position. Ireland was of course for 800 years oppressed by the evil hand of British rule (that brought us roads, education, some form of civilisation), and the fight to ‘free’ her could take as many lives as possible.

As slaves to history, and in the great Irish tradition of storytelling, they (or I should say, we) look to the Middle East and localize that situation and apply the same logic. The Jews are just like the Brits, you see. Forget the actual Holocaust, they imply, the real Holocaust is actually carried out by the Israelis.

Fr Mac Gréil’s study is of course shocking. But is it really surprising? Judaeophobia is the hatred en vogue of the bien-pensants.

As Ireland ‘progresses’ socially, one is left wondering whether it really is the island of Chaim Herzog. It also makes one wonder whether we need a new definition of ‘progress’.

Ben McCabe is a London-based Irish writer and student who tweets at @bernardmccabe and blogs at http://mccabre.wordpress.com