{"id":406998,"date":"2026-04-19T17:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T17:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406998\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T17:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T17:43:12","slug":"football-event-promoting-herzog-park-renaming-disrupted-by-pro-israel-campaigners-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406998\/","title":{"rendered":"Football event promoting Herzog Park renaming disrupted by pro-Israel campaigners \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro-Palestine <\/a>and pro-Israel <\/a>campaigners met on a sports pitch in Dublin on Sunday, not in friendly competition but amid disagreement over a proposal to rename Herzog Park in Rathgar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Irish Sport for Palestine (ISP), which had organised its sixth \u201ccommunity football match\u201d at the public park\u2019s all-weather pitch, criticised pro-Israel campaigners for staging a demonstration against the event as it was about to kick off.<\/p>\n

Former minister for justice Alan Shatter <\/a>led dozens of protesters, including other members of Dublin\u2019s Jewish community, in a walk around the pitch delaying the start of matches. Some carried Israeli flags, and others carried placards, accusing political opponents of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Shatter <\/a>claimed the ISP was promoting \u201ctheir occupation of the park as a roll on, roll off community football match … It\u2019s not about community, nor of any relevance to Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shatter <\/a>said there were about 500 parks of varied sizes across Dublin city and county, 300 within the city boundaries, at which \u201cany community football event\u201d could be held.<\/p>\n

\"AlanAlan Shatter leads protesters against an Irish Sport for Palestine event in Herzog Park, Rathgar, Dublin, on Sunday. Photograph: Patrick Humphreys <\/p>\n

He claimed the ISP \u201cis intent on targeting and intimidating our small Jewish community in one of Dublin\u2019s smallest parks at the heart of the community adjacent to the State\u2019s only Jewish school\u201d.<\/p>\n

Criticising what she called \u201cfalse accusations\u201d, ISP spokeswoman Rebecca O\u2019Keeffe said the event was a community family day to create awareness for Palestine and part of \u201cour campaign to rename the park which we have been working on for the past two years through Dublin City Council (DCC) through motions and proposals\u201d.<\/p>\n

The pro-Israel protesters were \u201ccausing a bit of an obstruction to the matches and they are accusing us of anti-Semitism and that is absolutely not the case\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a public park and we have held this so many times … We have so much public support for this. We feel that the naming of the park is not representative of a history we should be commemorating because of the history of the name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herzog Park <\/a>was named in 1995 after Chaim Herzog, the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993, who was born in Belfast and raised in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Controversy erupted last year when a proposal to rename the park was published on Dublin City Council\u2019s monthly meeting agenda after an agreement by members of the council\u2019s commemorations and naming committee in July. The proposal was later withdrawn due to what the council described as procedural errors.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Keeffe said: \u201cIn December last year, there was a lot of political interference based on a technicality with the council. As it stands now, the council is addressing that technicality but we have resubmitted a proposal based on compliance with the DCC guidelines. We said we have to rename it but it\u2019s open to public consultation. Public debate will rename it and that\u2019s perfectly fine by us.\u201d <\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed were present on Sunday and remained at the scene until the pro-Israel protesters left the sports field as their demonstration ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel campaigners met on a sports pitch in Dublin on Sunday, not in friendly competition but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[72,179066,26972,5005,26809,1058,42,3519,43,17634,179067,40,38,41,39,48390,179068],"class_list":{"0":"post-406998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-camper-van","10":"tag-camping","11":"tag-co-clare","12":"tag-ennis","13":"tag-feature","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-holiday","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-portrait","18":"tag-road-trip","19":"tag-top-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topnews","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-van","24":"tag-van-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}