Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T13:34:14.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The Irish and the Jews have a good deal in common’: Irish republicanism, anti-Semitism and the post-war world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2020

Brian Hanley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines how anti-Semitism influenced republican politics in revolutionary Ireland. It looks at Irish republican attitudes toward Jews, including examples of anti-Semitism. Jews were a visible minority in Ireland and one that was sometimes seen as unionist politically. This article illustrates how conspiracy theories about Jewish influence sometimes featured in Irish nationalist tropes, but were far more common in British and unionist discourses regarding events in Ireland. It also shows how individual Jews took part in revolutionary activities, even as some republicans expressed suspicion about them. Outside Ireland, Irish revolutionaries interacted with Jews in several locations, particularly the United States. There was often cooperation in these settings and both groups expressed solidarity towards one another.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 165 , May 2020 , pp. 57 - 74
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Count Plunkett to Éamon de Valera, 2 July 1921 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/1388).

2 Probably a reference to Karl Lueger, the Christian-Social mayor of Vienna, who based his appeal on populist anti-Semitic campaigns. See Lindemann, A. S., Esau's tears: modern anti-Semitism and the rise of the Jews (Cambridge, 2000), pp 343–7Google Scholar.

3 Plunkett to de Valera, 2 July 1921 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/1388).

4 Jackie Goodall, ‘Anti-Semitism in Ireland’, Ireland-Israel Alliance, 5 Nov. 2018 (www.irelandisrael.ie/anti-semitism-in-ireland) (31 Dec. 2019).

5 Wynn, Natalie, ‘Jews, Antisemitism and Irish politics: a tale of two narratives’ in PaRDeS, no. 18 (2012), pp 51–66Google Scholar. See also Wynn, Natalie, ‘“Remember, reflect, reimagine”: Jews and Irish nationalism through the lens of the 1916 centenary commemorations’ in Kultura Popularana, i, no. 51 (2017), pp 4–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Rivlin, Ray, Shalom Ireland: a social history of Jews in modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp 191–2Google Scholar.

7 Keogh, Dermot, Jews in twentieth-century Ireland: refugees, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust (Cork, 1998), p. 71Google Scholar. The author of A land not theirs, a bestseller when published in 1986, was David Marcus, originally from Cork city.

8 My emphasis. Coleman, Marie, ‘Cumann na mBan in the War of Independence’ in Crowley, John, Drisceoil, Donal Ó, Murphy, Mike and Borgonovo, John (eds), Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Cork, 2017), p. 408Google Scholar (figure 8).

9 Éamon de Valera, speech, Taft Hall, Atlanta, 23 Apr. 1920 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/934).

10 Irish World, 14 Feb. 1920.

11 Belfast News Letter, 2 Mar. 1920.

12 Cork Examiner, 5 Aug., 22 Sept. 1919; Evening Herald, 24 May 1919. Despite these reports it is worth noting that not everyone was sensitive to the context: a horse called ‘Pogrom’ owned by Lord Astor competed in races throughout this period (Freeman's Journal, 26 Oct. 1921).

13 Tuam Herald, 7 Aug. 1920.

14 Irish Times, 26 Apr. 1919.

15 Grada, Cormac Ó, Jewish Ireland in the age of Joyce (Princeton, 2006), pp 10–11Google Scholar.

16 Hession, Peter, ‘“New Jerusalem”: constructing Jewish space in Ireland, 1880–1914’ in Beatty, Aidan and O'Brien, Dan (eds), Irish questions and Jewish questions: crossovers in culture (Syracuse, 2018), pp 47–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Kenny, Colum, ‘James Larkin and the Jew's shilling: Irish workers, activists and anti-Semitism before independence’ in Irish Economic and Social History, xliv (2017), pp 66–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 O'Callaghan, John, Limerick: the Irish Revolution, 1912–23 (Dublin, 2018), pp 2–3Google Scholar.

18 Wicklow News-Letter, 5 Aug. 1919.

19 Limerick Leader, 7, 10 Nov. 1919.

20 The Anglo-Celt, 19 Nov. 1921.

21 Ó Grada, Jewish Ireland, pp 188–90, 195.

22 Madigan, Edward, ‘“Thou hast given Us Home and Freedom, Mother England”: Anglo-Jewish gratitude, patriotism, and service during and after the First World War’ in Madigan, Edward and Reuveni, Gideon (eds), The Jewish experience of the First World War (London, 2019), pp 307–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Solomons, Bethel, One doctor in his time (London, 1956), p. 65Google Scholar.

24 Geraghty, Hugh, William Patrick Partridge and his times, 1874–1917 (Dublin, 2003), p. 305Google Scholar.

25 Mrs George Clancy (Máire, Bean Mhic Fhlannchadha) statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 806); McGarry, Fearghal, Irish politics and the Spanish Civil War (Cork, 1999), pp 65–6Google Scholar.

26 The Fenian, 15 Sept. 1922.

27 Edward O'Neill statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 203); Robert Barton statement (ibid., W.S. 979); The Fenian, 15 Sept. 1922; Conor Morrissey, ‘Journalism: scandal and anti-Semitism in 1916: Thomas Dickson and The Eye-Opener’ in History Ireland, xxiv, no. 4 (July/Aug. 2016), pp 30–3.

28 See Thomas Pugh statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 397); Oscar Traynor statement (ibid., W.S. 340); E. J. Ryan statement (ibid., W.S. 1392); Hanley, Brian, ‘The Irish Citizen Army after 1916’ in Saothar, xxviii (2003), pp 37–47Google Scholar.

29 This idea was shared by some in the labour movement in both Ireland and internationally. See Workers’ Republic, 30 Dec. 1899 for an article on this theme originally published in the Brisbane Worker. See also Renshaw, Daniel, Socialism and the diasporic ‘other’: a comparative study of Irish Catholic and Jewish radical and communal politics in East London, 1889–1912 (Liverpool, 2018), pp 67–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 76–8.

30 United Irishman, 23 Jan. 1904.

31 Colum Kenny, ‘Arthur Griffith: more Zionist than anti-Semite’ in History Ireland, xxiv, no. 3 (May/June 2016), quotation in the online version, available at: https://www..historyireland.com/volume-24/arthur-griffith-zionist-anti-semite/

32 Hession, ‘“New Jerusalem”: constructing Jewish space in Ireland, 1880–1914’, p. 59.

33 Quoted in Kenny, ‘Arthur Griffith: more Zionist than anti-Semite’.

34 Sinn Féin, 16 Mar. 1912.

35 Seamus MacManus statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 283).

36 Margaret O'Callaghan and Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, ‘MacBride, (Edith) Maud Gonne (1866–1953)’ in D.I.B.

37 Catholic Bulletin, July 1916.

38 Michael O'Kelly statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 1155). J. J. O'Kelly opposed the Treaty and was a leading member of the rump Sinn Féin after 1926. He expressed vitriolic anti-Semitism in his pamphlet, Stepping stones (Dublin, 1939), pp 22–3.

39 An Gael, 26 Feb. 1916.

40 Brennan-Whitmore, W. J., With the Irish in Frongoch (Dublin, 1917), p. 79Google Scholar. Brennan-Whitmore served in the I.R.A. after 1919 and supported the Treaty. He retained a deeply anti-Semitic worldview in a lifetime on the Irish far-right. See Patrick Maume, rev. of Brennan-Whitmore, W. J., Dublin burning: the Easter Rising from behind the barricades, ed. Travers, Pauric (Dublin, 1996)Google Scholar in Studia Hibernica, no. 29 (1995–7), pp 245–7.

41 Oration delivered by Commandant Thomas Ashe at Casement's Fort, 5 August 1917 (Dublin, 1917), p. 7. In the original version, Ashe's statement was in capital letters.

42 Brennan, Robert, ‘Ireland and Spain’, Sept. 1921 in Fanning, Ronan, Kennedy, Michael, Keogh, Dermot and O'Halpin, Eunan, (eds) Documents on Irish foreign policy, vol. i, 1919–1922 (Dublin, 1998), p. 193Google Scholar.

43 Nancy de Paor statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 732).

44 John Chartres to G. Gavan Duffy, 30 Jan. 1922, in Fanning et al. (eds), Documents on Irish foreign policy, vol. i, pp 380–1.

45 G. Gavan Duffy to Ernest Blythe, 28 Mar. 1922, in ibid., pp 416–17. Bewley was ultimately appointed as Irish ambassador to Berlin in 1933. See Roth, Andreas, Mr. Bewley in Berlin: aspects of the career of an Irish diplomat (Dublin, 2000)Google Scholar.

46 G. Gavan Duffy to D. O'Hegarty, 15 Jan. 1921 in Fanning et al. (eds), Documents on Irish foreign policy, vol. i, p. 100.

47 Dáil Éireann deb., v, 53 (23 Aug. 1921). As a High Court judge Duffy gave what has been described as the ‘most notorious decision’ ever made by an Irish court. In 1942 he ruled that a landlady had the right to refuse a flat to a Jewish person, on the basis of their religion. In the light of his earlier views this is obviously significant. Gerard Hogan, ‘Duffy, George Gavan (1882–1951)’ in D.I.B.

48 Michael J. Kehoe statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 741).

49 Liam Ó Briain statement (ibid., W.S. 565).

50 Seamus Babington statement (ibid., W.S. 1595).

51 Walsh, J. J., Recollections of an Irish rebel (Dublin, 1944), pp 12–14Google Scholar, 44.

52 New Ireland, 4 Feb., 18 Mar. 1922.

53 Gaelic American, 29 Mar. 1919.

54 Golway, Terry, Irish rebel: John Devoy and America's fight for Ireland's freedom (New York, 1998), p. 185Google Scholar.

55 John Devoy to J. J. Lynch, 20 Jan. 1921 (U.C.D.A., Frank Aiken papers, P104/2592 (1–9)).

56 Carroll, F. M., American opinion and the Irish question, 1910–23 (Dublin, 1978), p. 48Google Scholar; Gaelic American, 25 Mar. 1922.

57 Ruotsila, Markku, ‘The Antisemitism of the eighth duke of Northumberland's The Patriot, 1922–1930’ in Journal of Contemporary History, xxxix, no. 1 (Jan. 2004), pp 71–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Maureen McGavock statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 385).

59 Markievicz, Constance de, What Irish republicans stand for (Glasgow, 1922), p. 56Google Scholar.

60 George White statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 956).

61 Dr Alice Barry statement (ibid., W.S. 723).

62 Kevin O'Sheil statement (ibid., W.S. 1170).

63 O'Connor, Vincent Altman, ‘“Altman the Saltman”, Leopold Bloom and James Joyce’ in History Ireland, xxv, no. 3 (May/June 2017), pp 30–3Google Scholar.

64 Solomons, Estella, Portraits of patriots (Dublin, 1966), pp 21–2Google Scholar.

65 Dermot Keogh claimed that Cork sisters Fanny and Molly Goldberg were members of Cumann na mBan but provides no evidence for this: Keogh, Jews in twentieth-century Ireland, p. 71. In 2016 Louis Marcus, Fanny Goldberg's son, stated that while his mother had not been in Cumann na mBan, his aunt Molly had joined for the ‘social and musical’ opportunities it offered: Wynn, ‘“Remember, reflect, reimagine”’, p. 13.

66 Béaslaí, Piaras, Michael Collins: soldier and statesman (Dublin, 1937), p. 264Google Scholar.

67 Michael Noyk statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 707).

68 Robert Briscoe, with A. Hatch, For the life of me (London, 1958), pp 18–19.

69 Robert Briscoe (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF297); Michael Briscoe (ibid., MD3668).

70 McCarthy, Kevin, Robert Briscoe: Sinn Féin revolutionary, Fianna Fáil nationalist and revisionist Zionist (Oxford, 2015)Google Scholar; Liam Lynch to Seán Moylan, 6 Feb. 1923 (U.C.D.A., Desmond FitzGerald papers, P80/791 (2)).

71 Keogh, Jews in twentieth-century Ireland, p. 75.

72 T. A. Smiddy to D. FitzGerald, 6 Jan. 1923 in Fanning, Ronan, Kennedy, Michael, Keogh, Dermot and O'Halpin, Eunan (eds), Documents on Irish foreign policy, vol. ii, 1923–1926 (Dublin, 2000), pp 27–8Google Scholar.

73 Report on revolutionary organisations, 4 Apr. 1930 (U.C.D.A., Desmond FitzGerald papers, P80/916 (3)).

74 See the mention of ‘Briscoe the Jew’ at Monaghan County Council in The Anglo-Celt, 14 July 1934.

75 ‘Inquiry into German accounting’ (U.C.D.A., Ernie O'Malley papers, P17a/4); report to C/S & QMG, 16 Apr. 1925 (U.C.D.A., Maurice Twomey papers, P69/210 (13–19)).

76 R. Briscoe to Sec. Pensions Board, 2 Mar. 1938 (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF297).

77 Seamus Robinson to Military Service Pensions Board, 16 Nov. 1935 (ibid.).

78 Jewish Chronicle, 24 Mar. 1922. There was also a claim in Jim Larkin's Irish Worker that Arthur Wicks, who was killed during the Rising, was a ‘Jewish comrade’. This appears to have no foundation. See McGrath, Sam, ‘The darkest hour is before the dawn: the story of Arthur “Neal” Wicks (1893–1916), English socialist, hotel waiter & soldier of the Irish Citizen Army’ in Saothar, xli (2016), pp 298–303Google Scholar.

79 James Delaney statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 1360). ‘Darby the Coon’ may in fact have been Isaac Bogarde, ‘Darky the Coon’, who was actually a Jewish gang leader: Morton, James, East End gangland (London, 2000), pp 126–9Google Scholar.

80 Denis Kelleher (U.C.D.A., Ernie O'Malley notebooks, P17b/107).

81 Seamus Reader (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP34REF4300).

82 Report on revolutionary organisations in the United Kingdom, 2 June 1921 (T.N.A., CAB 24/125/10, p. 14).

83 Richard Walsh statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 400).

84 Dawson, Richard, Red terror and green: the Sinn Fein Bolshevist movement (London, 1920), p. 250Google Scholar.

85 Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, Report (Dublin, 1920) p. 103.

86 Ibid., pp 110–11.

87 Irish World, 29 May 1920.

88 William McDonald to Dr William Maloney, 29 Sept. 1920 (N.L.I., W. J. Maloney papers, MS 17,684 (3–3)). I am grateful to Kelly Ann Reynolds for this reference. Left-wing Irish activists in the Irish Progressive League had supported Hillquit's campaign for mayor in 1917. See ‘The Irish are for Hillquit’ (N.L.I., Peter Golden papers, MS 13,141).

89 Irish Press, 8 Nov. 1919.

90 Bernstein, J., ‘“The two finest nations in the world”: American Zionists and Irish nationalism, 1897–1922’ in Journal of American Ethnic History, xxxvi, no. 3 (spring 2017), pp 5–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Irish World, 1 Mar. 1919.

92 Ibid.

93 Ibid., 24 Jan. 1920.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid., 14 Feb. 1920.

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid., 24 Jan. 1920.

98 Ibid., 9 Apr. 1921.

99 American Committee for Relief in Ireland & Irish White Cross, Report (New York, 1922), pp 19–20.

100 Ibid. See also Irish World, 6 Nov., 11 Dec. 1920.

101 Irish World, 6 Nov. 1920.

102 Preston, William Jr, Aliens and dissenters: federal suppression of radicals, 1903–1933 (Champaign, IL, 1994), pp 11–35Google Scholar.

103 Cuddy, Edward, ‘“Are the Bolsheviks any worse than the Irish?”: Ethno-religious conflict in America during the 1920s’ in Éire-Ireland, xi, no. 1 (spring 1976), pp 13–32Google Scholar.

104 Diarmuid Lynch, ‘Transcript history of the Friends of Irish Freedom’ (N.L.I., Diarmuid Lynch papers, MS 32,597).

105 Tuam Herald, 26 Feb. 1921.

106 Catholic Times, 15 Apr. 1922.

107 Ibid. 29 Apr. 1922.

108 Ribak, Gil, ‘“Beaten to death by Irish murderers”: the death of Sadie Dellon (1918) and Jewish images of the Irish’ in Journal of American Ethnic History, xxxii, no. 4 (summer 2013), pp 41–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 Irish Independent, 26 May 1919.

110 Irish World, 5 Feb. 1921.

111 Gaelic American, 24 Sept. 1927; Irish Echo, 22 July 1939; Bayor, Ronald H., Neighbors in conflict: the Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York city, 1929–1941 (Baltimore, 1978)Google Scholar.

112 Freeman's Journal, 16 Oct. 1920.

113 Hanebrink, Paul, A specter haunting Europe: the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism (Cambridge, MA, 2018), pp 34–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114 Gwynne, H. A. (ed.), The cause of world unrest (London, 1920), pp 195–6Google Scholar.

115 Irish Independent, 11 Oct. 1920.

116 Freeman's Journal, 16 Oct. 1920.

117 Belfast News Letter, 3 Nov. 1920.

118 In the post-Civil War period, however, elements on the pro-Treaty side began to adopt the ‘Judeo-Bolshevik’ trope and would also use de Valera's alleged Jewishness as a slur. See de Valera's denial of Jewish heritage and its link to allegations of communist sympathies in Dáil Éireann, Irish Press, 3 Mar. 1934.

119 Home Office, ‘A monthly review of revolutionary movements’, no. 32, June 1921 (T.N.A., CAB/24/126, p. 61).

120 Douglas, R. M., ‘The shamrock and the swastika: British Fascism and the Irish question, 1918–1940’ in Albion: a Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, xxix, no. 1 (spring 1997), pp 57–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 Bretherton, Cecil, The real Ireland (London, 1925), p. 71Google Scholar.

122 Douglas, ‘The shamrock and the swastika’, p. 63; Banister, Joseph, Our Judeo-Irish Labour party: how the interests of the British working men are misrepresented and betrayed by politicians who are neither British nor working men (London, 1923), p. 3Google Scholar.

123 Morning Post, 1 Feb. 1919. Unionist leader Richard Dawson Bates claimed that ‘resentment’ was being shown at what he called ‘the Russian Jew being brought from Dublin to teach the Belfast men their business’. See Morgan, Austen, Labour and partition: the Belfast working class, 1905–1923 (London, 1991), p. 235Google Scholar.

124 Keith Jeffery, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: a political soldier (Oxford, 2006), p. 273. See also James B. Connolly statement (M.A.I., B.M.H., W.S. 849).

125 Irish Independent, 14 July 1921.

126 The last days of Dublin Castle: the Mark Sturgis diaries, ed. Michael Hopkinson (Dublin, 1999), p. 35.

127 Ibid., pp 135–6.

128 Hart, Peter, The I.R.A. and its enemies: violence and community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998), p. 314Google Scholar.

129 McCluskey, Fergal, Tyrone: the Irish Revolution, 1912–23 (Dublin, 2014), p. 123Google Scholar; Wilson, Timothy K., Frontiers of violence: conflict and identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922 (Oxford, 2010), p. 151CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 Cork Examiner, 13 Dec. 1920.

131 Irish Independent, 1 Nov. 1923.

132 Ibid., 17 Nov. 1923.

133 See James Conroy (M.A.I., M.S.P.C., MSP24SP80). Conroy was a veteran of the Easter Rising and ‘the Squad’. There is related material in James Conroy (senior) (ibid., MSP 34REF743), W. C. Roe (ibid., MSP34REF21737), J. Fitzgerald (ibid., MSP24SP106) and J. Coughlan (ibid., MSP24SP550).

134 Katrina Goldstone, ‘Who shot Emanuel Kahn?’ in Irish Times, 18 Nov. 2003.

135 Keogh, Dermot and McCarthy, Andrew, Limerick Boycott, 1904 (Cork, 2001)Google Scholar.

136 Berman, Hannah, Zlotover story: a Dublin story with a difference (Dublin, 1966), p. 46Google Scholar.

137 Dáil Éireann deb., c, 2129 (23 Feb. 1934), 2314 (28 Feb. 1934).

138 Plunkett to de Valera, 2 July 1921 (U.C.D.A., Éamon de Valera papers, P150/1388).

139 I am grateful to Fearghal McGarry, Katrina Goldstone, Robert Gerwarth, Edward Madigan, Patrick Mannion, Patrick Mulroe and Jimmy Yan for their comments and suggestions.