Visitors to Dublin’s Herzog Park on Monday said they believed controversial plans to rename the public amenity should be dropped.
A proposal has been made to remove the name of the former Israeli president Chaim Herzog, who served from 1983 to 1993, from the Rathgar park.
Herzog was born in Belfast and spent his early childhood in Dublin while his father served as Ireland’s chief rabbi. The park was named after him in 1995.
Councillors were on Monday set to vote on a motion proposing a change, but the plan was later suspended.
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Taoiseach Micheál Martin had said he disagreed with the idea and councillors were on Monday evening due to hear a motion condemning his alleged interference in the matter.
Kate Godinho, who lives beside Herzog Park, said she did not see a good reason to change the name and that she believed doing so would come across as “a bit anti-Semitic”.
“It is a traditionally Jewish area so I think whatever it’s named should be kept with some connection to the Jewish area,” said Ms Godinho, a data analyst and supporter of Palestine.
“I don’t think it’s right to force a Palestine name in. I don’t think it’s fair on the [Jewish] community to dename it after a Jew and then call it ‘Free Palestine’.”
Anne Marie Hayes, who lives in Rathgar and walks her dog in the park every day, said she was not in favour of “revisiting history”.
She said the park was “named at a point in time to relate to Chaim Herzog” and she did not see “any reason why it should be renamed now”.
“I don’t think it connects, for me, to any of the current events that are going on in the world,” said the tour guide and artist.
“What would you call it if you renamed it? That’s another question and are you obliterating another part of our history then?”
Michéal O’Néill, a retiree, originally from Cork and now living near the park, said he was “shocked” when he heard about the proposal to dename the park.
“I have great sympathy for the Palestinian people, but I have realised the great support that the Jewish people on this island have given the arts and law and generally.”
He said Jewish people have a “great reputation” and he cannot understand “any need to remove the plaque in memory of president Herzog”.
He believes the park’s name should “stay as it is” due to the “history associated with it”.
“The Jewish people are as much part of our history as any. God knows where any of our ancestors came from,” he said.
Christine Harte, who has lived in Rathgar for more than 50 years, said her children played tennis at Rathgar Tennis Club in Herzog Park and that renaming it would be “terribly wrong”.
“It’s an incitement to stir up anti-Semitism,” she said. “There is no necessity for it.”
