Irish government slams Dublin plan to remove name of Chaim Herzog from city park

Foreign minister says move ‘has no place in our inclusive republic’; country’s chief rabbi says renaming park would ‘send a painful message of isolation to our small community’

The Irish government on Saturday urged the Dublin city council not to rename a park honoring former Israeli president Chaim Herzog.

A Dublin City Council committee has proposed renaming the city’s “Herzog Park” — named after Ireland-born Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president and the father of the current president, Isaac Herzog.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and the move followed a campaign by anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activists, but official council documents did not disclose a reason for the proposal.

“This name change should not proceed and I urge Dublin city councillors to vote against it,” Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said in a statement.

McEntee said Saturday that Ireland, home to about 3,000 Jewish people, had been “openly critical of Israel’s policy and actions in Gaza and the West Bank.”

But “renaming a Dublin park in this way — to remove the name of an Irish Jewish man — has nothing to do with this and has no place in our inclusive republic,” she said.

The foreign minister spoke out after a copy of the city council report dated Monday circulated online showing that the city’s naming committee had agreed that Herzog’s name should be removed from the park, and referred the decision to the council for a vote.

Herzog, who died in 1997, was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland and grew up in Dublin before serving as Israeli president between 1983 and 1993. His father was the first chief rabbi of Ireland after it gained independence from Britain in 1922.

The office of President Isaac Herzog said Saturday that the proposal, due to be approved next week, would be “shameful and disgraceful” if it is carried out. The statement from Herzog’s office implied that the council was aiming to rename the park “Free Palestine.”

Irish Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said Saturday that removing the name from the park “would be to erase a central piece of Irish-Jewish history, and send a painful message of isolation to our small community.”

The rabbi added that “Herzog Park is more than a name on a sign. It’s a place filled with memory, and an important reminder that our community has deep roots in Dublin.”

When the park was named in 1995, Wieder added, “it was a recognition not just of one man, but a chapter of shared history. That history has not changed, and it cannot be undone by motions or votes.”

Maurice Cohen, who leads the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI), said the proposal was “already perceived by our community as a gross act of antisemitism.”

The south Dublin park, which houses a tennis club and 10 tennis courts, was named in Herzog’s honor in a 1995 ceremony marking the tri-millennium of Jerusalem, according to the Dublin City Council website. It was previously called Orwell Quarry Park, according to the website.

At least one online petition, created in April 2024 by the Irish Sport for Palestine organization, community soccer team 1915 FC and Irish nationalist group 1916 Societies, called for the park to be renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was reportedly killed by Israel in Gaza City in January 2024 along with five of her family members and two medics who had gone to save them. The petition has attracted more than 3,400 signatures.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Saturday that “Dublin has become the capital of antisemitism in the world.”

“The Irish antisemitic and anti-Israeli obsession is sickening,” said Sa’ar.

Though Dublin may be removing the name of Chaim Herzog from the park, he wrote on X, “what cannot be removed is the disgrace of the Irish antisemitic and anti-Israeli obsession.”

Last December, Sa’ar ordered the closure of its Dublin embassy, blaming Ireland’s “extreme anti-Israel policies.”