Renaming of Herzog Park to be withdrawn

The proposal to rename Dublin's Herzog Park is expected to be withdrawn.

The plan, set to be voted on by Dublin City Council, would remove the name 'Herzog', named after the Dublin-raised Chaim Herzog, who served as the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993.

Challenged proposals also include the push to change Diamond Park to Terence Wheelock Park, after the 20-year-old from who died in 2005, weeks after he went into a coma while in garda custody.

"A detailed review of the administrative missteps will now be undertaken and a report furnished to the Lord Mayor and Councillors," said Chief Executive of Dublin City Council Richard Shakespeare.

Last June the members of City Council's Commemorations and Naming Committee reached an agreement to change the name of Herzog Park with one objection.

In order to change a placename, said Shakespeare in a statement, there must be proposed new name, a public consultation and a secret ballot of qualified electors.

"The regulations required to govern the process for a secret ballot are not yet in place," he added. "The report to the elected members does not take account of the correct statutory procedure and is missing information for a valid resolution to be adopted."

Shakespeare said that he is "proposing to withdraw the report from the agenda with a recommendation that the matter be referred back to the Commemorations and Naming Committee for consideration of the statutory procedure".

According to Lord Mayor Ray McAdam, the report submitted in reference to changing the parks' names contained insufficient information and didn't allow council members to make "an informed decision".

"That is unacceptable, I am frustrated, I am annoyed, I have not experienced anything like this in my 17 years of Dublin City Council," he added.

"I do not believe this is an acceptable way to do business, we cannot have reports coming to full council that do not have sufficient information, that do not meet the legislation, nor quite frankly should reports be coming to council where there is not a procedure to implement the will of the elected members."

He said that he did not personally think it was "appropriate or right to look to rename Herzog Park".

The motion to rename the park was first raised in 2024 by Labour Party councillor Fiona Connelly, who claimed that she had been informed that the park's naming did not follow the correct procedures.

In January, People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy raised the same issue.

"This process and proposal has been on the agenda for over a year and it seems very suspicious that at this very last minute, all of a sudden there is an excuse found to withdraw the items from the agenda," said Independent councillor Cieran Perry, who was among the people who first proposed removing 'Herzog'.

"I suspect political interference." He added that the proposal was in opposition to the war in Gaza and to Herzog's legacy, including his roles in a Zionist paramilitary organisation, the IDF and as President of Israel.

Perry said that he would support renaming the park after "a progressive Jewish person who hadn't been involved in ethnic cleansing and who had contributed to Dublin or to Ireland".

Taoiseach Micheál Martin called for the proposal to be "withdrawn in its entirety and not proceeded with".

"The proposal is a denial of our history ... and will without any doubt be seen as anti-Semitic," he said. "It is overtly divisive and wrong. Our Irish Jewish community's contribution to our country’s evolution in its many forms should always be cherished and generously acknowledged.

Isaac Herzog's office, the son of Chaim Herzog, said that changing the name would be a "shameful and disgraceful move".

"Jews for Palestine Ireland fully support the campaign to rename Herzog park so that it no longer honours a man who gladly took part in a large scale ethnic cleansing," said the group via Instagram.

"Memorials to war criminals are a poor way to commemorate the rich contribution that Ireland’s Jewish community have made to this city and country. If Dublin City Council wishes to memorialise these contributions, there are many worthy names to choose from."

"Chaim Herzog left Ireland to take part in a campaign of colonisation in Palestine," they added. "As a post-colonial nation we should not maintain park names that honour this work."

The Chief Rabbi of Ireland Yoni Wieder said that he welcomed the proposal's suspension. "I welcome the suspension, but really the question is how we got to this stage, how this proposal was put forward in the first place," he said.

Last year, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of its Dublin embassy. "Dublin has become the capital of anti-Semitism in the world," he said.