Alan Shatter: Palestine 'cult' endangers future of Irish Jews

And we are back with Alan Shatter.

So I guess if we're going to start, let's talk a little bit about the history of Ireland and the Jews going back.

And we can go back before you were born even.

You know, James Joyce, in Ulysses, he has a character who says, Ireland, they say, has the honor of being the only country which never persecuted the Jews.

And do you know why she never let them in? So is Ireland's general history with the Jews, is it one where Jews were able to move there, were able to live basically proudly, openly as Jews? Or is there this trend that there's this conservative Catholic country that has never wanted Jews and barely tolerates them? So how would you look at Ireland's history and the Jewish people?

Ireland's history with the Jewish community is, I think, intermingled with Ireland's history with England and Ireland being part of the United Kingdom.

Until 1922, Ireland effectively was ruled by England.

Irish people perceived themselves as being part of what had become an English colony for 800 years.

In 1922, Ireland obtained its independence, or at least 26 counties of Ireland did.

And then we have Northern Ireland, which is the other six counties which remain part of the UK.

Now, why is any of that relevant to the history of the Jewish community here? Well, most of the original Jewish community arrived here.

Most of the original of today's Jewish community arrived here in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

They came from Eastern Europe.

There were smaller Jewish communities in preceding centuries here.

but that would be the backdrop and the foundation of what is today's Jewish community.

The maximum number in the Jewish community at any time over the years was about 5,500.

That's where the community would have been in around the 1960s and 70s.

The original community today is shriveled down to around 1,000, maybe 1,200.

There's probably a total of about 3,000 Jewish people living in Ireland because of the number of Israelis, well over a thousand, maybe 1,500, and others from other countries who are here working in pharma and tech and other multinational companies.

But Ireland has a chequered history with the Jewish community.

There's both the good and the bad.

There were a small number of Irish people involved in the Irish independence movement, or Jewish people, I should say, involved in the Irish independence movement during the 1930s when fascism was developing across Europe and the A German Reich was created.

Ireland adopted a new constitution in 1937, which very unusually recognized firstly the special position of the Catholic Church, but secondly gave express recognition to other Christian denominations and to the, quote, the Jewish congregation.

So that was presented as a positive.

But the negative during the 1930s was effectively Ireland significantly closed its doors to the Jewish community in Germany.