‘It feels like giving way to antisemitic voices’ – correspondence received by councillors shows hurt over Herzog Park renaming proposal
Monday’s meeting of Dublin City Council (DCC) heard a wide array of views from members about the controversial proposal to dename Herzog Park in Rathgar.
Proponents pointed to the conduct of Israel in its war on Gaza, killing more than 70,000 people, while others said removing the name would be an act of erasure of Irish-Jewish history.
But the matter, since referred back to the council’s Commemorations and Naming Committee, drew no small amount of attention from Dubliners, who contacted representatives.
Labour’s Dermot Lacey said he received about 1,000 emails on the topic, with slightly more of them for the name change than against.
“I suspect some campaigning organisation has encouraged them to write,” he said. “I started to reply to them all, but the volume became just crazy.”
Mr Lacey said the letters he received against the proposal tended to be more personal, more local, and many were from families.
Much of the correspondence seen by the Irish Independent consisted of copied and pasted messages from both camps, but some revealed the depth of hurt the proposal caused.
Like many Irish-Israelis living in Ireland, I am not happy with the Israeli government
“When my family and I moved to Dublin, we were genuinely heartened to see how people here look beyond politics and understand that individuals are not defined by their governments,” one person wrote.
“Whenever friends and family in Israel asked about our experience, I always said that we felt truly welcomed by everyone we met. And now this proposal to rename Herzog Park has come up.”
The person, a parent of a child attending a nearby school, said they felt it was an “attempt to erase an important part of Jewish history in Dublin”.
“It feels like giving way to the rising antisemitic voices, and it directly impacts our sense of safety and belonging in the city,” they said.
Another person said they moved to Ireland in 1998 and had fallen in love with the country and its people.
“Like many Irish-Israelis living in Ireland, I am not happy with the Israeli government and cannot wait to use my voting power against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” they said.
“However, removing Herzog’s name seems like an antisemitic move that has nothing to do with Israel. It seems to deny the Jewish involvement in Irish history and is very disturbing.”
Fine Gael councillor David Coffey said Herzog Park was the issue he had been contacted about more than any other in his 11 months on the council.
“On other issues, I may have received a couple of dozen emails. On this issue, I received a few hundred,” he said.
Like Mr Lacey, he noticed that emails in favour of keeping the name tended to be more personal.
It would ‘send an awful message to the dwindling Jewish community in our city’
“They’re from the area or they’re from the Jewish community. My sense, based on the emails, is that the vast majority of people who have made the effort to tell me that they visit the park and live in the community did not want this name changed,” he said.
Mr Coffey said Jewish people in Ireland were feeling “besieged”, but they were just “ordinary, law-abiding citizens like the rest of us”.
A local person who uses the park with their child said renaming it would “send an awful message to the dwindling Jewish community in our city”.
“I would ask you to urge those responsible to reconsider, notwithstanding the damage this does to our image in the US and elsewhere,” they said.
Someone who visits the park regularly said they had observed “its significance as a beloved community space, especially for our children”.
“The prospect of renaming such a cherished area raises troubling questions about the potential use of a children’s park as a platform for political messaging.
“Our public parks should be places of joy, inclusion and community spirit.”