North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Unwelcome

The Minister of Justice was due to mark World Holocaust Day with a speech in Dublin last Saturday.

I don't know why Ireland even commemorates this day, given the marked lack of national discourse of Ireland's treatment of Jews and other minorities in World War 2. It doesn't even have much bearing on what is shaping up to be one of key election issues: immigration. Up to and during World War 2, the issue of Jewish refugees was handled purely as an immigration and asylum issue. And given the benefit of hindsight, and the experience of millions of Irish people as emigrants, you'd think that maybe some reflection would be in order. Not at all. The Minister made another speech last week, outlining plans [11] for detention camps for asylum seekers, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa, a part of the world where millions have died in war over the last decade.

It is always dispiriting when politicians take the low road. It is clear that many parties in the forthcoming election fear being soft on immigration, and are posturing accordingly. The number of asylum applications has dropped dramatically , from around 12,000 per year at the turn of the decade to about 3,000 now [most immigration to Ireland is entirely 'internal' - from other parts of the EU, or returning Irish citizens]. McDowell justifies the detention centres to prevent the scenario of an immigrant :-

…making a claim and then disappearing into Irish society and never resurfacing again.

Presumably, an immigrant disappearing into Irish society and never resurfacing would imply someone settling down, contributing to society and never making a claim against state resources or coming to the attention of the police. I would have thought this would be the definition of a perfect citizen, but I guess not. I suspect that the detention plan won't survive beyond the election, whatever the result.

The Opposition aren't any better. Last week, the Fine Gael party leader, Enda Kenny, spoke of a national debate on immigration, but didn't exactly accentuate the positive. By attributing the rise in mafia-type crime and traffic accidents to immigrants, you'd wonder if Enda lives in the same country as the rest of us at all. The problem for Enda, and other leading Irish politicians is that none of them have much idea of how to define or enunciate a modern Irish identity. How then can an immigrant conform to an ideal that even Irish people have not agreed upon ? Kenny's vision, invoking the notion of a "Christian and Celtic" people, might have been a be snappy definition around the time of the Battle of Clontarf, but doesn't offer much guidance today. And, given that the last decade has probably been the most prosperous and peaceful of the last thousand years, with inter-denominational Christian strife finally coming to an end on the island, and a booming economy, maybe the current Ireland, immigrants and all, is the one we've always been striving for.

Kenny in particular should choose his words carefully - his own party flirted with the far right in the past (the Blueshirts) and some of his party's representatives in Dáil Eireann were openly anti-Semitic. It was these sort of attitudes (right across the political spectrum) that led to the denial of asylum to Jews in Ireland.

A trawl through the Dáil record is revealing. Casual anti-Semitism [or indeed, anyone considered alien] was unremarkable. In the late summer of 1921, even before the Treaty with Britain was signed, George Gavan Duffy [who would be one of the signatories of the Treaty], and had defended Roger Casement at his trial for treason complained [1] that

… the main difficulty in getting facts known abroad lay in the existence of the octopus of the big foreign agency called by different names but all run by big Jew firms in London which had complete control of the first news wires in respect to Irish affairs as they appeared on the continent. … by no means was it possible to tap those poisonous wires at the source.

Denis Gorey, who led the Farmer's Party in the Fourth Dáil (and later became a deputy for Fine Gael) seemed to blame "the Jews" for pretty much anything he could think of. In May 1925, he participated in a debate [2] on Defence. His question related to the collection, by the Army, of old clothes which were then sold off [which gives you an idea of just how poor the country back then]

I believe it used to be the custom to sell it in one heap, and that the Jews are the people who get hold of it. It is said that one big Jew, who has been identified with army matters for some years, gets it. His name has been mentioned freely as the man who derives all the benefit with regard to this class of thing and some other classes of things. We have someone else to cater for in this country besides Jews. I suggest this clothing should be sold at the different Army depôts down the country, where it accumulates, and that it should not be brought up here and sold in one big heap to a big Jew

The Minister of Defence replied

I am interested only in getting the highest price, whether the tender be from a Jew or a Gentile. I do not believe that better prices would be procured if Deputy Gorey's suggestion were adopted.

In a debate [3] in 1931, he was at it again. The subject of the debate related to state support (either through subsidy or purchase) for various companies and assets. Another eputy had just asked if the valuation of 1,000 pounds (for plant equipment) was fair. Gorey's comment was that

They got it at a Jewman's price

After protest, he withdrew the remark. In this case, his comment was a sly dig at the previous speaker, Bob Briscoe. Briscoe was Jewish, and was probably unique in that, as both an Irish Republican and Zionist, helped in the creation of two states - Ireland and Israel - and would become the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin. As the only Jewish deputy in the Dail for long periods, he had to listen with a lot of anti-Jewish remarks from certain Fine Gael politicians.

In a debate [4] in 1931 [on the perceived monopoly on sheep skinning in the country], Patrick Belton (Fine Gael deputy for Dublin North from 1927 - 1943) complained :-

If the export market is shut down in the morning, is there anyone to buy a sheepskin in the City of Dublin for use in the City of Dublin? There will not be a Jew in Dublin who will not be buying sheepskins next week and making a corner in them and every Deputy knows they have cornered the trade in Dublin…That remark of mine had no reference to Deputy Briscoe, and I am sure Deputy Briscoe knows it.

Deputy Belton was in full flow again in a Finance debate [5] in 1937.

We hear the boasting coming from the Government Benches—we heard it to-day—of the progress of industrialisation. It is time that we in this country came down to tin-tacks and got some little moral courage. It is time for us to pull the wool off our eyes and tell this House and tell the country what industrialisation in this country really means. It means that we are handing this country over to a gang of international Jews…It is these international Jews who are reaping the harvest out of the sweat of the Irish people. It is to guarantee their dividends that the game is being kept up.

Belton's following remarks were in the context of the attempts of Germans and Austrians who were Jewish to seek asylum in Ireland. He protested at Government policy …

which allows the industrial development of this country to be a shelter for undesirable aliens coming into this country, many of them the outcasts of the countries in which they previously resided—coming in here and getting full citizenship rights.

Sean MacEntee, then Minister for Finance replied

Our people were often outcasts.

That cut no ice with Belton.

Yes, but they worked for their living wherever they went. Does the Minister compare the Irishman who, no matter what country he goes into, is prepared to take off his coat and work, with the Jew who comes to live on the people of this country——

MacEntee interrupted

I think the village of Nazareth has at least as much claims on humanity as Deputy Belton's birthplace.

Belton :-

We shall leave the Minister to his village of Nazareth. That is our industrial development. That is the policy which allowed these people to dig themselves in in industry, and as a result of which they have gone into commerce, with the consequence that in some of the principal streets in Dublin to-day you have not got a single Irishman owning one of the houses.

MacEntee :-

That must be Belton Park.

Belton continued in the same vein in the following week in a subsequent debate, to the point where another deputy asked him to stop Jew-baiting [6]. It would be tempting, from these exchanges, to believe that the then Government was sympathetic to the plight of Jews fleeing oppression in Europe. But the country admitted less than 100 refugees during WW II, despite the efforts of people such as Bob Briscoe, to have asylum applications for Jewish applicants processed . [RTE have just broadcast a 2 part documentary describing the number of Nazis that successfully sought refuge in Ireland after the war].

Even after the true horrors of the Holocaust became known, certain attitudes lingered, no matter how nonsensical. In a 1947 debate [8], John O'Leary (Labour Party) claimed that

I have a cutting here which says that we have neither butter nor bacon in [1459] rural Ireland. However, on the 10th August, 1946, 300 tons of bacon left the City of Dublin although the poor people in rural Ireland cannot get a rasher for their breakfast. Two thousand three hundred and forty tons of gift meat went out of this country in 15 months to the people on the other side. That concession was stopped because, I believe, the Jewish people were sending it to their friends in London. It was not all going to the Irish emigrants on the far side.

Hardly sound kosher, does it? He also claimed that Jews were running the cinema industry here. But probably one of the odious anti-Semites ever to grace the Dáil was Oliver J Flanagan (also Fine Gael). His debut in the Dail in 1943 summed up his philosophy

How is it that we do not see any of these [Emergency] Acts directed against the Jews, who crucified Our Saviour nineteen hundred years ago, and who are crucifying us every day in the week? …There is one thing that Germany did, and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country it does not matter a hair's breadth what orders you make. Where the bees are there is the honey, and where the Jews are there is the money.

In another debate [9], he declared that

The situation, as far as the control of Jews in this city and throughout the whole country is concerned, is very serious. Aliens are buying up land, houses, property, and something will have to be done or the country will be overrun by foreigners here while we will be looking on and we will be turned into the slaves of the foreigner again. Something will have to be done to see that the Irish race and the general public of this country are protected from the influence and destruction of aliens and Jews whose influence is growing stronger and stronger in this country every day.

He made that speech two years after the Nuremburg Trials had begun, in 1947, and the true horror of the Holocaust has become known. But for Oliver J, the enemy was still at large. It should be said that his views didn't seem to cost him a vote. It didn't stop him getting the highest award that the Catholic Church can award a lay person - the order of Order of St. Gregory the Great. Anti-Semitism didn't fall from the trees in Ireland.

[1] Dáil Éireann - Volume 4 - 23 August, 1921,
PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT REPORT: DISCUSSION

[2] Dáil Éireann - Volume 11 - 20 May, 1925, COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES.—VOTE No. 57 (ARMY) (RESUMED)

[3] Dáil Éireann - Volume 37 - 06 March, 1931,
In Committee on Finance. - Supplementary Estimates. Vote 52—Agriculture.

[4] Dáil Éireann - Volume 51 - 22 March, 1934,
Sheepskin (Control of Export) Bill, 1934—Committee Stage.

[5] Dáil Éireann - Volume 65 - 04 March, 1937,
Committee on Finance—Vote On Account.

[6] Dáil Éireann - Volume 65 - 10 March, 1937,
Private Business. - Central Fund Bill, 1937—Second Stage.

[7] Dáil Éireann - Volume 108 - 05 November, 1947,
Finance (No. 2) Bill, 1947—Second Stage.

[8] Dáil Éireann - Volume 108 - 05 November, 1947
Finance (No. 2) Bill, 1947—Second Stage.

[9] Dáil Éireann - Volume 105 - 27 March, 1947
Estimates for Public Services, 1947-48. - Vote 32—Office of the Minister for Justice (Resumed).

[10] Dáil Éireann - Volume 111 - 02 June, 1948
Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).

[11] Irish Independent, January 27th 2007

holocaust, jew,anti-semitism, asylum, ireland, irishblogs, photoblogs, photography, galwayblogs, immigration, monasette, january, 2007

Posted by Monasette at January 29, 2007 05:17 PM