Antisemitism in Ireland

Ireland has been mostly Catholic throughout history.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, pro-Nazi sentiment was common among the Irish due to their dislike of the United Kingdom,^[1] which was fighting Nazi Germany.^[1]

In July 1940, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) praised Nazi Germany as the "friends and liberators of the Irish people" in a statement, with little to no opposition from the Irish public.^[1][2] Meanwhile, the IRA worked with Nazi spies to plot attacks on British troops in Northern Ireland^[1][2] and circulated materials accusing Éamon de Valera's neutral Irish government of being owned by "Jews and Freemasons".^[1][2]

As per declassified MI5 documents, IRA leading figures Seán Russell and James O'Donovan – both veterans of the Irish War of Independence – were the main Irish contacts with Nazi Germany.^[1][2] They got Nazi weapons, plotted joint attacks on British troops and discussed with Hitler a possible German invasion of Northern Ireland to facilitate Irish "reunification".^[1][2]

As per Kurt Haller, an anti-Nazi German diplomat who testified in the Nuremberg Trials,^[2]

James O'Donovan [...] asked for German support for the occupation of Northern Ireland [. ...] seemed most interested in obtaining delivery of weapons, ammunition and explosives.

As per Erwin von Lahousen, a Nazi German general who also testified,^[2]

Frank Ryan^[3] suggest that the German invasion of Britain would be an opportune moment for the seizure of Northern Ireland [. ...] Ryan had told [Edmund] Veesenmayer^[4] that [Éamon] de Valera would support [...] provided he considered it a legitimate risk to take.

Controversially, de Valera visited and offered condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Adolf Hitler.^[5][6]

Since 2013,^[7][8] a baseless theory, which claims that "Irish slaves" existed in 17th century North America before the arrival of African slaves, has been made popular by Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers^[7][8] in both Ireland and the United States.^[7][8] The theory is sometimes called the "Irish slaves myth". The myth reportedly originated from the book To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland written by Irish journalist Seán O'Callaghan (1918–2000)^[7][9] and published by The O'Brien Press in Dublin, Ireland.^[9]

The myth has been widely condemned by scholars as a far-right conspiracy theory downplaying the suffering of African Americans in history,^[7][8] who were enslaved until 1865, segregated until 1965 and systemically discriminated against until now.^[10] Despite To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland promoting the widely condemned far-right myth, the book is still on sale in the Sinn Féin Bookshop^[11] run by the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party.^[11][12]

In spring 2024, antisemitism in Ireland reportedly worsened with the escalation of the Israel–Hamas war, where antisemites felt justified to harass Jews under the guise of supporting Palestine, and some Irish Jewish community leaders were doubtful if Ireland was still safe^[13] for the approximately 2,700 Jews – 0.054% of the 2023 Irish population^[14] – in Ireland.

In November 2024, IMPACT-se released a report that criticized content about Jewish people in Irish school text books.^[15] The Irish government disagreed with their conclusions.^[16]

David Collier, an Irish researcher in Middle East affairs,^[17] noted that antisemitism among contemporary Irish is derived from^[17]

• Religious antisemitism: Classic Christian belief that "Christians are the new Jews" as "the Jews killed Jesus"
• Political antisemitism:
  • Popularity of the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party whose founders promoted conspiracy theories about Jews
  • Projection of anti-British sentiment onto Israel^[18] due to the belief that "Britain gave the Jews Israel" is similar to the British settler colonialism in the history of Ireland.^[19][20]