The proposal to strip Herzog Park of its name is more than a routine motion before Dublin City Council. It is a gesture that cuts directly across Ireland’s own history, its values, and its long, if now fading, relationship with our Jewish community.
An Taoiseach Mr Micheál Martin was right to call this proposal “divisive and wrong”. It is exactly that. To remove the Herzog name is to erase a story woven deeply into the fabric of the Irish State: a story of solidarity, shared struggle, and the willingness of a small minority community to stand with Ireland, before Irish independence was secure.
Chaim Herzog’s father, Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, took his place beside the first Dáil at a moment when such an act carried real personal risk. He did not choose silence or obscurity. Instead, he offered his leadership, his scholarship, and his friendship to a fledgling nation then struggling to define itself.
In the decades that followed, Rabbi Herzog built an unlikely, but enduring, relationship with Éamon de Valera. He learned Irish, advised during the drafting of the 1937 Irish Constitution, and ensured that the Jewish community, then facing existential threat elsewhere in Europe, was explicitly protected in our founding document. De Valera himself regarded this protection as essential.
Removing the Herzog name now shows little regard for that legacy. It risks signalling that Irish memory is selective, and that contributions made by minorities count only until the political winds shift.
The forest of 10,000 trees planted in Israel in 1965 in de Valera’s honour was intended as a lasting symbol of mutual respect. Today, that symbol stands in stark contrast to a relationship that has deteriorated to the point where the Israeli Embassy has closed its doors in Dublin. Ireland’s foreign policy in recent years has been shaped by new pressures, shifting alliances, and at times, an eagerness to move with global trends rather than stand firmly in the centre.
The debate over Herzog Park is symptomatic of something deeper: a narrowing of historical perspective. In the heat of present-day geopolitical tensions, there is a temptation to reduce Ireland’s stance to simple binaries, solidarity with one cause, with condemnation of another. But this neglects the complexities of our own past, including the violence we once justified in the name of liberation. The Good Friday Agreement may have delivered peace, but it also allowed a form of civic amnesia to settle in. We remember heroics; we forget those who suffered outside the story we prefer to tell.
It is easy to brandish the language of liberation and resistance. It is harder to honour the quieter, older stories, like that of the Herzogs, who stood with Ireland not for applause or advantage, but because it was right.
Contemporary Political Climate.
Renaming Herzog Park would say far more about today’s Ireland than about its past. It would suggest a willingness to discard historical nuance, to minimise minority contributions, and to allow contemporary tensions to override long-established bonds.
The proposal should be immediately withdrawn. Not as a favour to one community, but as an affirmation of Ireland’s own basic integrity, its commitment to remembering fairly, honouring generously, and resisting the pull of easy revisionism by those foolishly elected individuals, each with little knowledge or understanding of our rich Irish history.
Ireland’s political landscape has been increasingly influenced by global tensions, including heightened pro-Palestinian activism by in particular Fine Gael. Critics warn that the Irish State has risked aligning itself with more extreme elements, even as it seeks to preserve long standing international relationships, including its strategic ties with the United States.
However, there are statutory safeguards and restrictions already in place.
Name changes require formal procedures, not ad-hoc renaming. While there isn’t a blanket ban on changing Irish place names, there are laws which regulate and restrict how name changes can happen.
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