Allegations that Ireland was an anti-Semitic country were described as “false, irresponsible and mischievous” by representatives of the Irish Jewish community.
In 1944 the Jewish Representative Council of Éire signed a letter stating that neither the Irish government nor the Irish people were anti-Semitic.
“The Jewish community live and have always lived on terms of closest friendship with their fellow Irish citizens,” they wrote in a document in the files of the Department of Foreign Affairs which have just been released.
“Freedom to practice their religion is specifically guaranteed in the Irish Constitution. No Irish government has ever discriminated between Jew and non-Jew.”
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Fianna Fáil TD Robert Briscoe denied “emphatically” that the people of Ireland or any government of Ireland, are, or have ever been anti-Semitic. Briscoe, who was Jewish, fought against the British in the War of Independence.
“I should like to add that the Jewish community in Éire are taking their full share in the defence and auxiliary defence forces of the country and they wholeheartedly support the Government’s policy of neutrality.”
The two declarations were sent following a request from Franz Josef Katz, a member of the World Jewish Congress, in August 1944 inquiring of the Irish government as to whether or not it would support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
In July 1944 the Irish Government declined a request from the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation to recognise a “Hebrew nation”. If the Irish Government did such a thing, the committee suggested, Jewish nationals could register at Irish legations in Europe and seek protection.
The request made to Robert Brennan, the Irish minister (ambassador) in Washington, was turned down on the basis that the committee was not a representative body and the British, who had a mandate to rule Palestine, would surely oppose such a move.
“I told him apart from other considerations, it was very unlikely that the Irish Government would at this stage take any step in external affairs which would antagonise any of the big powers,” Brennan added in a letter to the secretary of the Department of External Affairs.
He also stated that the Jewish community themselves were divided on the issue of a “Hebrew nation” as many in America thought that the establishment of a Jewish state would play into the hands of anti-Semites who felt Jews were not loyal to the country they resided in.
In 1945 the Irish government turned down a request from Jewish organisations in the United States to issue passport documents to surviving Jews in Europe.
The plea was made in 1945 by the World Jewish Congress. Pointing out that other neutral governments such as Sweden, Switzerland and Spain had issued passport documents to Jews living under Nazi occupation, it asked if Ireland could do something similar.
Brennan responded by stating that Ireland had already considered the issuing of documents and it was found to have been “impractical and that I doubted whether any representation from a neutral country at this time would be of any avail.”
