On September 26 I wrote a BLOG on “THE SINN FEIN RABBI” and I promised to reply to the comments of”Joe Bloggs” when I had the time. He, in turn ,promised to refute what he called my “revisionist points.”
My piece opened citing Chaim Herzog’s recollection of Eamon de Valera’s visiting his father’s home in the company of Robert Briscoe. Checking the Wikipedia entry on Rabbi Herzog I discovered that he had been described as “THE SINN FEIN RABBI”. I then GOOGLED “SINN FEIN RABBI” and found various references, including in Israeli newspapers. I neither invented the description nor sought to revise anything.
Rabbi Herzog was not the only Jew who supported Sinn Fein and was personally friendly with Sinn Fein leaders.
When Arthur Griffith contested the East Cavan By-Election in 1917 (which he won),William Sinclair, who had been involved with Sinn Fein from an early date, devoted so much time campaigning in the constituency that his business partnership with his brother Harry collapsed, according to Michael Noyk. William and Harry Sinclair were Jewish, as was Michael Noyk, a close legal advisor to Arthur Griffith and defence solicitor for Republican prisoners of the British.
William Sinclair was a Sinn Fein candidate for the Howth District Council in January 1920. The Howth Sinn Fein Branch at the time was socially diverse and included Catholics, Protestants and at least one Jew. (See BLOG 22 July 2016 “THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE” by Philip O’Connor.)
William Sinclair contributed articles to THE IRISH REVIEW which had been founded by Thomas MacDonagh and edited at times by Joseph Mary Plunkett and Padraig Colum. Its contributors were a virtual Who’s Who in Irish Literature, Art and Politics. Padraig Colum wrote a biography of Arthur Griffith, and ,so far as I can remember faced up to the fact of Griffith’s early anti-Semitism, but also his growing out of that bigotry.
William Sinclair was a popular figure in Dublin artistic circles, a friend of Sir William Orpen, Cecil Salkend and Estella Solomons. Estella was another Jewish supporter of Sinn Fein, and a portrait by her of Frank Gallagher adorns “The Four Glorious Years” penned by Gallagher under the pen-name “David Hogan.”
William Sinclair was an art collector and antique dealer, and it seems that he so loved beauty that he was reluctant to to sell much of his stock. So, in business terms he was never a great success. But his devotion to beauty impelled him in 1912 to organise a successful campaign to prevent landowners blocking off rights of way to the sea on the South side of the Hill of Howth. If that had been the only thing he did, it would have moved a loving God to give him a very honoured place in Heaven.
Unfortunately at least one admirer of Arthur Griffith never grew out of his anti-Jewish bigotry. Oliver St.John Gogarty, immortalised by James Joyce as “Buck Mulligan” in ULYSSES , was sued for libel by William and Harry Sinclair in the 1930s. Samuel Beckett, a friend of Sinclair testified for the Sinclairs. I don’t know what the verdict was. I’m sure one of my readers will enlighten us.
I’ve looked up the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary which defines a pogrom as an organised massacre. The Limerick boycott of Jews was a shameful business. Perhaps it might have become a pogrom except for the Constabulary. Unfortunately under the Czars the forces of the state did not protect
the Jews, and I believe actually participated in the outrages. Some Irish readers might recall parallel phenomena under the Czars’ cousins.
I trust some readers can throw further light on the positive contribution of Ireland’s Jewish Community to our National Life. And pray that the cranks who believe there is a Jewish conspiracy to do the country down will not pollute the discussion. The question of Zionism is not relevant to what I’ve
written.
Thus ends my piece FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR BLOGGS, whom I hope will now go in peace.
Gogarty was sued by Henry Sinclair (William was dead) over a reference to them in his book “As I Was Going Down Sackville Street”. It included a poem that read:
“Two Jews lived on Sackville Street,
And not in Piccadilly,
One was gaitered on the feet
and the other one was Willie.
And if you took your pick of them,
whichever one you chose,
You’d like the other one more than him,
so wistful were these Jews.
They kept a shop for object wrought,
by Masters famed of old.
Where you, no matter what you bought
Were *genuinely* sold.
But Willie spent the sesterces
and brought on strange disasters,
Because he sought new mistresses
more keenly than Old Masters.”
Reporting of the case in November 1937 covered three pages of The Irish Times. Henry Sinclair won and received £900 in damages (although it is reckoned the case cost him about £2,000 in total).
I think there were two posts a few weeks ago in quick succession both about “the Sinn Fein Rabbi”. I commented on one that it wasn’t a name that have gave himself, and was unlikely to have if he knew of Sinn Fein’s history of anti-semitism.
(What we have learned so far, re the first point, people referred to him as the Sinn Fein Rabbi – there is no evidence that he “was supportive of Sinn Fein” and you don’t provide any).
On another thread you threw your arms up in disgust at the very idea that there could be anti-semites in Sinn Fein. I pointed you towards Griffith (he founded the whole shabang, dontcha know) and the anti-Jewish comments he published (“I have in former years often declared that the Three Evil Influences of the century were the Pirate, the Freemason, and the Jew”). You seem to now accept that he was anti-semetic, but you think he mellowed…so that’s alright. (Did he ever withdraw those remarks….or apologise?).
I am glad you think that the Jewish boycott / pogrom in Limerick was shameful. You seem to lay the blame at the RIC for not adequately protecting the Jews against the people stirring up violence against them (although you know accept that there was physical violence involoved and not simply a boycott) rather than blaming the people stirring up the violence (see Griffith) or carrying it out. What a beautiful insight into the Republican world view! I note your definition of “pogrom” as an organised massacre – a lot of people refer to the civil unrest in Belfast in the late 60s as “pogroms”….you had better tell them they are not using the term correctly. I can think of one organisation whose actions would fit the description, though.
I also mentioned Sean Russell, (not referenced above), who conspired with the SS to land Nazi soldiers in Ireland (making him a traitor to the Crown and the neutral Republic). Apparently, he wasn’t sympathetic to the Nazi cause, though…..(recap, on a U-boat, with the SS and a bunch of Nazi soldiers to start a ground war in Ireland and was buried at sea with a Swastika on his coffin…….good luck selling that one Donal!).
Anti- Jewish sentiment is still prevalent today in the ranks of Sinn Fein. Martina Anderson recently referred to the Jews as a “rash”. Hammas, an organisation committed to the destruction of the Jewish race are invited to share a platform at SF annual conference every year.
Have you ever looked back at history and thought….”hey! maybe WE’RE the bad guys?”.
There are lots of other anti-semites within the Repbulican movement. I think I pointed you towards “The Shamrock and the Swastika” previously? It’s a good read, Donal and will provide a welcome smell of coffee after you waken up.
Maybe I’ll write a blog on it….
Shalom.
Failte romhat, jb…
The blog in question.
Surely anti-semitism was rife in Ireland? My parents tell of their various nuns, brothers in primary/secondary school repeating the various vile blood libels of the Jews.
It’s a quare one that both the Blue Shirts and Sinn Fein were both aligned with Hitler. One wonders why they spent so much time fighting each other.
Unless, of course, Job Bloggs is full of the proverbial.
I attended a Christian Brothers primary school, gendjinn – maybe mine was exceptional but the only Jews mentioned were in the New Testament, and even then only the good ones…
The Christian Brothers and Loretto nuns of Dublin were a fierce lot. You were fortunate to miss out on the bigotry that came with the communion, bumped into many of them over the decades.
I knew quite a few Loreto nuns, having had five sisters attend them. Some of them were battle-axes, some were warm and loving. Kinda like human beings, actually…
Exactly. Just like human beings. And just like the human beings of their times there were bigots and there were good people.
None of these stories are shocking to you, Strumpet City should remind you of the different experiences people had with the Catholic church depending on if you had money or you didn’t. As my parents lost both lost a parent as very young children, and given the absence of any welfare state, they grew up poor and saw the nastier side of the church that apparently was kept away from people who could pay fees.
Write your BLOG, I’ll leave it to others to comment on it.
Griffith was anti Jewish in 1904. I cited established fact in my blog and inits defence.
Obviously the RIC defended the Jews in Limerick and the Boycott did not develop into a
pogrom.
Catholics (and non-Unionist Protestants) have died in Orange organised pogroms in Belfas t on numerous occasions. The RUC and B Specials sometimes led the pogroms.
Sean Russell was never a Nazi and it is unlikely he was in contact with the SS.
The Germans didn’t have means nor the intention of invading Britain or Ireland in either world war. Germany was the source of many thousands of weapons landed at Larne in 1914 and less than 2,000 landed at Howth and Kilcoole in the same year.
I have seen no evidence that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish people.
Nor even the destruction of those Jews who are Zionists.
Must have been landlubbers who buried Sean Russell. Naval personnel don’t use coffins at sea. I suppose you have a photograph, or an eye-witness account of Russell’s burial?
Go ahead – write your BLOG. I’ll leave it to others to comment on it.
I’ve had my say and I retract nothing.
OK – so Arthur Griffith was an anti-semite, we are in agreement on that. (you provide no evidence of his remorse for his part in the boycott / pogrom or any retraction of his anti-semetic publications)
Russell was very firmly a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator.
Russell was elected chief of staff of the IRA in April 1938. He also established contact with Nazi Germany and declared war on Britain. Under his leadship the IRA launched their bombing campaign in Britain and in February 1939 the Germans sent Oscar Pfaus as an agent to Ireland to establish direct contact with the IRA. Pfaus met with its inner circle which included Sean Russell and Jim O’Donovan, who said Pfaus made a good impression and they trusted him.
Sean Russell travelled to the United States in April 1939 and met with his Clann na Gael host Joseph McGarrity and Robert Monteith, who was director of Father Charles Coughlin’s National Union of Social Justice. Coughlin was a controversial priest whose radio broadcasts were described as ‘a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture’. Indeed Woody Guthrie described Coughlin as having ‘Hitler on the brain’. In America Russell made contact through McGarrity with a German agent and this led to arrangements for Russell to travel across the Atlantic to Genoa, where he arrived on 1 May, and then for a reception in Berlin, where he arrived four days later.
In Berlin he liaised with SS-Standartenfuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer and by 20 May Russell had begun training with Abwehr (German military intelligence) in the use of the latest German explosives. The training lasted three months and was conducted at the Abwehr training school near Brandenburg, which specialised in the design of explosives as everyday objects.
On 15 July 1940 Frank Ryan, an IRA man who had fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and had been captured by Franco’s forces, was handed over to the Abwehr and taken to Germany.
Abwehr chief Wilhelm Canaris sanctioned the transport of Russell to Ireland and both Russell and Ryan, who had arrived in Germany on 4 August, sailed from Wilhelmshaven on 8 August aboard the U-65.
Russell became ill during the journey and complained of stomach pains but U-65 did not have a doctor on board and he died on 14 August 1940, 100 miles short of Galway. He was buried at seawith full German military honours (which would include being swathed in a Swatika) and the mission was aborted.
He could not have been blind to the Nazi’s fascism and systematic extermination of the Jewish people – he did not care. The Simon Weisenthal centre in Paris have long opposed the Statue of Russell in Dublin; perhaps, Donal you could take the point up with them and explain what a good egg Russell was really?
According to a Channel 4 documentary, directed by Gerry Greg and broadcast in 1997, Sean Russell’s quartermaster was Dominic Adams, an uncle of Gerry Adams, so this may have led to the Sinn Fein fetishism of this Nazi collaborator – Shinners follow their dear leader no matter what (even when he covers up for his paedophile brother).
AS regards Hammas, have a go at reading their charter (or ask for a copy at the next Sinn Fein Ard Fheis…they are there every year), The Hamas Charter reads like a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf.'” According to the charter, Jewish people “have only negative traits and are presented as planning to take over the world.” It quotes a saying of Muhammad : “The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
The charter goes further in detailing how Jihad against the Jews is a duty. “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters”
Hammas present the Arab-Israeli conflict as a Jihad against the JEws in which the total destruction of the Jews is considered the only possible victory.
But, don’t take my word for it, ask then next time they are at a SF rally.
As regards pogroms in Northern Ireland, the discussion will always descend to ‘reductio ad whataboutero’. If you want evidence of “pogroms” that fit your dictionary definition, look no further than the Republican death squads of your beloved IRA. (Start with Kingsmill, La Mon, Enniskillen and keeping researching).
I think Russell’s big mistake was truly believing the Nazis were the ‘enemy of his enemy’ and therefore his friend. He underestimated the real bond between Britain and Germany. From a perspective that everything is black and white, by contacting the Germans, he entered a situation were nothing was black and white. A bit like our recent conflict, nothing is black and white.
so: WW2 was all pretend? I am pretty sure there was a lot of enmity going on between Britain and Germany….
“so: WW2 was all pretend? I am pretty sure there was a lot of enmity going on between Britain and Germany….”
How sure are you?
Is Hamas “dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish race”? It claims it wants a two-state solution to the Palestine / Israel problem (a ‘problem’ dreamed up in Whitehall when the Great War was not going the way it had hoped. Germany, and particularly Austria-Hungary (& even worse, Turkey) proving considerably tougher than expected). The Brutish Empire offered Palestine (a piece of real estate it didn’t own) to the World Zionist Organisation and to the Arabs simultaneously.