More aggression

It seems that every culture has the same terrible troubles..... ones that can be used in novels..............


Lack of role models drive young people to join gangs
The study found gangs often provided many young people with a sense of identity

Date: 14 August 2008

By Michael Howie
Home affairs correspondent
ONE in three young people in Scotland does not have a parent it regards as a role model, according to a new report.
The Culture of Youth Communities report by the Prince's Trust reveals that 30 per cent surveyed lack a parental role model, and suggests this is driving them to join gangs.

Sixty-two per cent of young people in Scotland claim that finding a sense of identity is a key reason for joining a gang, where more than one in five looks for role models in gangs.

Geraldine Gammell, the Scotland director of the trust, warned the breakdown of traditional communities was pushing the country's young people into forming their own alternative communities.

She said: "All the threads that hold a community together – a common identity, role models, a sense of safety – were given by young people as motivations to join gangs. Our research suggests that young people are creating their own 'youth communities' and gangs in search of the influences that could once have been found in traditional communities."

The report further revealed young people are more than twice as likely to turn to a peer than a parent if they have a problem. Of those questioned, 61 per cent said they would go to a peer, while only 30 per cent would approach a parent.

The report also puts into context alarm over knife crime and youth crime. Only 9 per cent of young people have spent time as part of a gang, 3 per cent "regularly" take drugs, and 2 per cent carry a knife.

Recent research has found there to be about 300 territorial gangs in Scotland.

Police are focusing attention on diverting young people from gang culture. Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, head of the Violence Reduction Unit, agreed with the report's main findings.

"Young men from deprived backgrounds who have poor parental relationships can often find the support they don't find within their families among a group of similar young men – there is a sense of understanding through their shared experience," he said.

"The gang therefore becomes almost like an extended family.

"When you do not experience success in school or home and lack the aspiration to do so, the reputation as a fighter or gang member may be all you have."

The YouGov poll surveyed 1,754 aged between 14 and 25 across the UK in July.

PROFILE

SAMANTHA Thomson had a difficult upbringing which led her into drug abuse and unemployment.

"Lacking a strong role model in my life and being involved in a bad relationship, I started smoking cannabis and was suffering from very low self-esteem," said the 19-year-old from Barrowfield, Glasgow.

"This lack of confidence and motivation I feel also prevented me from engaging with my local community and from seeking a job."

Visited a local careers office, she learnt about the Prince's Trust's 12-week programme, designed to give young people the opportunity to work in a team on a community project.

While completing the programme, she worked on a community project in Parkhead and participated in various fundraising initiatives.

She is now a part-time youth worker with the YMCA, working with 12- to 18-year-olds.

Ms Thomson says the trust provided her with a mentor, "someone who made me feel good about myself and built up my confidence".

She adds: "Through this I am now working in a job I love, and able to use the experience I have gained to mentor other young people."

'There are lots of contradictions in contemporary parenting'

Professor Lynn Jamieson

ARE fathers role models? It is not clear what a "role model" means to young people.

Even if children are happy with their parents as parents, that may not mean they want to be like them.

The majority of children have two active parents and almost three-quarters live with both parents. Divorce or separation of parents is certainly much more common than in the 1950s or 1960s, but the most likely negative impact of fathers leaving the family home is a loss of income and relative poverty.

Estimates vary concerning how many children have no real relationship with their father, but it may be no more than 10 per cent.

Nevertheless, children and young people who know of a living father, but have no contact, or only unhappy contact, with him often experience "ambiguous loss", unresolved grief and a sense that things should be otherwise.

Research also shows that even when children live with a mother and father, fathers are often rather more shadowy figures than mothers, who are more likely to know their children's friends, and with whom children are more likely to discuss problems.

There are lots of contradictions in contemporary parenting that affect the experiences of children and young people. Most parents have a sense of time pressure.

Mothers try to juggle caring for children with paid work and fathers of young children have the longest working hours despite the fact that more men than ever would like to be more involved fathers.

Fascinating Story

Even the birds are getting aggressive.............

You squawking to me? Bird terror turns tourists' stroll into emergency escape

Great skuas show little fear of humans while protecting their young, or of other birds when hungry

« Previous « PreviousNext » Next »View GalleryADVERTISEMENT Published Date: 13 August 2008
By JOHN ROSS
PICKPOCKETS in Turkey, too much sun in Spain or a hurricane off the coast of Florida are all holiday hazards that can be anticipated on an exotic break.

However, one couple were astonished to find their gentle stroll on a holiday to Orkney fraught with danger when they were dived-bombed by angry seabirds and had to be airlifted to safety by the coastguard.

The pair, from London, got lost while walking on the island of Hoy on Monday and then found themselves targeted by great skuas after stumbling on their nests.

Most residents of the Northern Isles know to stay well away from the great skuas, or "bonxies" as they are known, which are renowned for their swooping assaults on humans who invade their territory during the breeding season.

A direct "hit" is extremely uncommon, but the aerial bombardment, designed as a scare tactic, can be frightening and intimidating for the victims.

Chris Booth, a naturalist who carries out counts of the birds on Hoy, has taken to wearing a crash helmet after suffering cuts to his head.

"They are just defending their nests. If you walk into their territory they will attack you but they don't attack for any other reason.

"These people were wandering around a bit aimlessly and went into a skua territory and the birds were telling them to get out of the way."

At this time of year nesting is almost over with just a few large chicks left to fledge.

Mr Booth has counted 44 great skua nests at Stourdale, near the Old Man of Hoy, and expects about 14 pairs to rear young.

His advice to those who find themselves in a nesting area is to raise a stick above their heads: "If you raise your profile the birds will come down to the highest point. If you lift a stick they will tend to touch the stick rather than you."

Other birds known to dive-bomb are Arctic skuas, Arctic terns, tawny owls, hen harriers and some species of gull.

Doug Gilbert, an ecologist with RSPB Scotland, also has experience of being hit by bonxies and Arctic skuas.

"I've been dive-bombed in Shetland and elsewhere, it's an occupational hazard. They are much more aggressive in mid-egg stage and very young chick stage. You could be 100-150 yards away and be dive-bombed.

"They swat the back of your head with their feet or use their wing tips to belt you.

"I've felt the 'sting' from a great skua's feet; it's like getting a whack on the head with a ruler. If you're not expecting it it can freak you out.

"Local people will know all about bonxies but most people in Britain will never have seen them. They are impressive birds and to suddenly find you're being attacked by them can be a bit of a surprise."

Eric Meek, an RSPB warden on Orkney, said in 28 years on the island he has been hit only twice by a great skua: "If a bonxie does hit you, you know you've been hit. But it's very rare occurrence.

"They will threaten you and come whizzing past your ears. But as soon as you walk out of their territory they will leave you alone."

FACT BOX

• Sometimes called flying thugs or the bovver boys of seabirds, great skuas are aggressive pirates that terrorise other birds to steal a free meal.

• Bonxies, as they are known in Orkney and Shetland, are about 50-58cm in length with a 125-140cm wingspan.

• They deliberately harass birds as large as gannets to give up the food they have caught so they can eat it themselves.

• They also readily kill and eat smaller birds such as puffins and it has been known for a bonxie to swoop on a flock of ducks and pick off the young one by one.

• Great skuas migrate to the northernmost isles of the UK from their wintering grounds off the coasts of Spain and Africa.

Historical Snippets

This came from Scottish Snippets newsletter. Gotta' keep my historical timelines in order. Publisher wants another Clan Gunn book--it's still selling well.

Anniversaries of Scottish Historical Events
August 10 1460 - King James III crowned at Kelso Abbey.
August 11 1560 - Latin Mass prohibited in Scotland by Parliament as
Protestant faith gained the ascendancy.
August 12 1922 - Popular character actor Fulton McKay was born in Paisley.
August 13 1957 - Scotland's first nuclear power station at Dounreay went
"critical" ushering in the generation of power from atomic reactions.
August 14 1337 - King Robert III born at Scone.
August 14 1390 - King Robert III crowned at the Augustinian abbey of Scone.
August 15 1771 - Novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott born.
August 15 1840 - Foundation stone for the Monument to Sir Walter Scott laid
in Princes Street Gardens.
August 16 1766 - Birth of Carolina Oliphant (Lady Nairne), poet and author
of many Jacobite songs, including "Charlie is my Darling". Her songs are
second only in popularity to Burns.
August 17 1822 - Visit of George IV to Edinburgh began, orchestrated by Sir
Walter Scott.
August 17 1947 - First Edinburgh International Festival opened.
August 18 1966 - Tay Road Bridge opened.
August 19 1745 - Charles Edward Stuart, raises his standard at Glenfinnan,
at the start of the '45 uprising.
August 20 1897 - Ronald Ross, the first Scot to win a Nobel prize (in 1902)
dissected a mosquito and established the link with malaria.
August 21 1689 - Battle of Dunkeld when the newly formed Cameronians
defended the town against 3,000 Highlanders.
August 22 1282 - Devorgilla, Countess of Galloway founded Balliol College,
Oxford. She was mother of John Balliol (who acceded to the Scottish throne
in 1292).
August 23 1305 - William Wallace executed.

More Irish history

I love Ireland and its many stories. Even my novel, LOST SON OF IRELAND, takes in some of the history. The book takes place in 852 Ireland, when the Norse wanted to reclaim Dublin from the Danes. I just dragged some characters through the times, just to see how they might act. It was a fun book to write.

This comes from IrishHistory.org

Essex sent to Ireland : His Failure There

Elizabeth, however, was not a ruler likely to allow a country the possession of which she knew, in the then condition of Continental affairs, to be of almost vital importance to the very existence of England, to slip thus easily from her grasp. She resolved to send across the Channel such a force as would not only, she felt sure, speedily crush the rebels, but would extend her authority over the whole island, and make her in reality ” Queen of Ireland.”

In her selection of a leader for the expedition she allowed herself to be swayed rather by feeling than by reason. Her choice fell on Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, a handsome man of thirty-two, having many superficial advantages, but whose success in military affairs had not, so far, been remarkable. He was the son of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose attempt at a Plantation in Ulster had ended so unfortunately, and since Leicester’s death in 1588 he had been the Queen’s chief favourite.

The title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, more honourable than that of Deputy, was now conferred on him. The army placed under Essex’s command was, with the exception of that which followed Richard II in 1394, the largest that had ever crossed from England to Ireland. It numbered 16,000 infantry and 1,300 cavalry, all well armed and equipped. If the troops already in the country be added, we may estimate that the Lord Lieutenant had at his command a force of at least 21,000 or 22,000 men.


Towards the middle of April 1599, Essex landed in Dublin and at once proceeded to ignore the instructions which he had received before leaving England. Rightly judging that if the leader of the rebellion were once crushed, the whole coalition against her would fall to pieces almost of itself, Elizabeth had ordered Essex to at once attack ” the Arch-traitor Tyrone.” In Dublin, however, the Lord Lieutenant met many persons, some of them high officials, who had either themselves been dispossessed by the rebels of great estates in Munster, or were related to those who had so lost them. These men, ” aiming rather at their private interests than the public good,” persuaded Essex to turn south.

He marched through the midland counties to Limerick and Waterford, then back through Wexford and Wicklow. A series of disasters marked his way. Near Maryborough his rearguard was shattered by Owney O’More at the head of 400 men. The pass where the encounter took place was afterwards known, from the many English helmet plumes that strewed the ground, as ” the Pass of the Plumes ” (t)eo,|\riA tiA Cteitroe).

In Co. Limerick the Burkes and the O’Connors inflicted defeats on the forces of the Lord Lieutenant and his allies.Still more disastrous on the morale of the army than these reverses was the almost continual skirmishing; a species of warfare to which the English soldiers were unaccustomed, and for which their heavy armour and equipments rendered them unfit. It was with a force ” weary, sick and incredibly diminished in numbers ” that the Lord Lieutenant returned to Dublin in June.

Elizabeth was both disappointed and enraged at the poor results achieved by the splendid army from which she had hoped so much, ohe brushed aside Essex’s attempts at explanation, and reproached him for his disobedience in a tone to which the haughty favourite had been httle accustomed from his hitherto indulgent Sovereign. She so far relented, however, as to send him, at his request, a reinforcement of 2,000 men. Yet, even after the arrival of these additional troops, Essex hngered in Dublin, allowing his forces to waste away by illness and desertion. or two months there was virtually a pause in the military operations ; then, early in August (1599), Essex ordered Sir Conyers Clifford, who, since his raids in the previous year, had remained mostly in and about Ballymote, to advance across the hills, called in English the Curlews (CoipufUAo), into Sligo, and, having raised the siege of Collooney Castle, where O’Connor Sligo was being hard pressed by the Irish, to proceed into Fermanagh.

Essex sent to Ireland : His Failure There

Elizabeth, however, was not a ruler likely to allow a country the possession of which she knew, in the then condition of Continental affairs, to be of almost vital importance to the very existence of England, to slip thus easily from her grasp. She resolved to send across the Channel such a force as would not only, she felt sure, speedily crush the rebels, but would extend her authority over the whole island, and make her in reality ” Queen of Ireland.”

In her selection of a leader for the expedition she allowed herself to be swayed rather by feeling than by reason. Her choice fell on Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, a handsome man of thirty-two, having many superficial advantages, but whose success in military affairs had not, so far, been remarkable. He was the son of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose attempt at a Plantation in Ulster had ended so unfortunately, and since Leicester’s death in 1588 he had been the Queen’s chief favourite.

The title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, more honourable than that of Deputy, was now conferred on him. The army placed under Essex’s command was, with the exception of that which followed Richard II in 1394, the largest that had ever crossed from England to Ireland. It numbered 16,000 infantry and 1,300 cavalry, all well armed and equipped. If the troops already in the country be added, we may estimate that the Lord Lieutenant had at his command a force of at least 21,000 or 22,000 men.

Towards the middle of April 1599, Essex landed in Dublin and at once proceeded to ignore the instructions which he had received before leaving England. Rightly judging that if the leader of the rebellion were once crushed, the whole coalition against her would fall to pieces almost of itself, Elizabeth had ordered Essex to at once attack ” the Arch-traitor Tyrone.” In Dublin, however, the Lord Lieutenant met many persons, some of them high officials, who had either themselves been dispossessed by the rebels of great estates in Munster, or were related to those who had so lost them. These men, ” aiming rather at their private interests than the public good,” persuaded Essex to turn south.

He marched through the midland counties to Limerick and Waterford, then back through Wexford and Wicklow. A series of disasters marked his way. Near Maryborough his rearguard was shattered by Owney O’More at the head of 400 men. The pass where the encounter took place was afterwards known, from the many English helmet plumes that strewed the ground, as ” the Pass of the Plumes ” (t)eo,|\riA tiA Cteitroe).

In Co. Limerick the Burkes and the O’Connors inflicted defeats on the forces of the Lord Lieutenant and his allies.Still more disastrous on the morale of the army than these reverses was the almost continual skirmishing; a species of warfare to which the English soldiers were unaccustomed, and for which their heavy armour and equipments rendered them unfit. It was with a force ” weary, sick and incredibly diminished in numbers ” that the Lord Lieutenant returned to Dublin in June.

Elizabeth was both disappointed and enraged at the poor results achieved by the splendid army from which she had hoped so much, ohe brushed aside Essex’s attempts at explanation, and reproached him for his disobedience in a tone to which the haughty favourite had been httle accustomed from his hitherto indulgent Sovereign. She so far relented, however, as to send him, at his request, a reinforcement of 2,000 men. Yet, even after the arrival of these additional troops, Essex hngered in Dublin, allowing his forces to waste away by illness and desertion. or two months there was virtually a pause in the military operations ; then, early in August (1599), Essex ordered Sir Conyers Clifford, who, since his raids in the previous year, had remained mostly in and about Ballymote, to advance across the hills, called in English the Curlews (CoipufUAo), into Sligo, and, having raised the siege of Collooney Castle, where O’Connor Sligo was being hard pressed by the Irish, to proceed into Fermanagh.


Posted on August 5th, 2008 under Irish Success.

Scotland news-Most silly

This is one of the silliest things I've read of late. From the Scotsmen.com.

Judge bans man from the pub for killing his wife

By Brian Ferguson

A JUDGE yesterday spared a pensioner who killed his wife a prison sentence – and instead banned him from going to the pub.

Edward Flaherty strangled his wife with a tie after she refused to give him money to go to his local bar in Glasgow. But the 74-year-old was told by the judge, Lord Matthews, that his dementia made him unsuitable for prison, and that being unable to go to the pub would be a "more meaningful" punishment.

Lord Matthews imposed a year-long order that will keep him inside his home during pub opening hours. He will be tagged and banned from going out between 11am and 11pm.

The sentence was attacked last night, both for failing to protect the public and for not providing proper care for Flaherty.

Labour's justice spokesman, Paul Martin, said: "The sentence is clearly not robust enough for the crime, and the failure to provide a package of care completely inappropriate.

"The judge has to take responsibility for this."

Flaherty claimed he had no recollection of throttling his wife with a tie in April last year at their home in Drygate, Glasgow.

His lawyer told the court that his client had been diagnosed with progressive dementia and that he would ultimately need 24-hour care.

Lord Matthews told the defendant: "You were found guilty of the culpable homicide of your wife, who you were together with for many years.

"In normal circumstances this would attract a prison sentence in double figures.

"I have read and considered a number of reports from experts. It is plain to me that if I were to impose that sort of sentence you would be released in a very short time because prison would not be able to cope with your condition.

"Sentencing you would just be a token gesture. I am anxious to impose a sentence that restricts your liberty.

"You still go to the pub where you went with your wife. That must annoy her relatives.

"Not being able to go there will be a more meaningful disposal than a prison sentence which will not last long."

Mr Martin, a Glasgow MSP, said: "This is clearly a very difficult case in which there has been a mental illness involved.

"However, the real issue here is that the sentence has not been robust enough to protect the public from him doing anything similar again.

"There has been no effort to provide any kind of appropriate care package to deal with this man's mental health condition.

"A restriction of liberty order is clearly inappropriate in a case as serious as this."

Edward McLaughlan, a spokesman for the Scottish Dementia Working Group, an independent campaign group funded by Alzheimer's Scotland, said: "It's a quite shocking sentence for a crime like this.

"There are obviously a lot of people with dementia who are being treated in prison, although we don't know how serious his condition is.

"The whole issue of the provision of care for dementia sufferers needs to be looked at in the light of this case, as there would clearly be issues if he was to be treated in a care home.

"I'm not entirely sure what the best sentence for this individual would be, but it's certainly not appropriate for him to receive a restriction of liberty order."

Flaherty was convicted of killing 69-year-old Ina with a tie after she refused to give him money to go to the pub.

The High Court in Glasgow was told that, in a medical report, Flaherty claimed he had actually killed his sister, because she was cheeky.

Donald MacLeod, QC, defending, said yesterday: "The report prepared for the court paints a picture of a man in significant physical and mental decline.

"There is a clear diagnosis of dementia setting in. It is a progressive condition and ultimately he will need 24-hour care.

"I am deeply conscious there has been a death here, but this man is very unwell.

"He was always willing to plead guilty to culpable homicide, but this was flatly rejected by the Crown and that is why a trial was necessary."

Flaherty went on trial accused of murder on 2 April last year.

A jury convicted the retired scaffolder of the reduced charge of culpable homicide.

The jury was told that even slight pressure around Mrs Flaherty's neck could have caused her death because her arteries were furred.

The court had heard that Flaherty had regularly visited a pub called The Lampost, on Duke Street, after his retirement and had developed a drink problem.

After the couple returned from the pub he wanted to go back for more, but Mrs Flaherty refused to give him any money.

Giving evidence in his defence, Flaherty, of Gibson Heights, Drygate, said he had no recollection of the moment he throttled his wife.

The court heard Flaherty, who has had three heart attacks, could not remember who the Prime Minister was and called him "that curly headed bloke".

He also thought the current US president was Richard Nixon.

He recently boarded a train to Bristol, did not know where he was and had to have £100 sent to him to get home.

But when asked who killed Mrs Flaherty, he said: "It must have been me. There are no ghosts running about the house who would have done that."

Flaherty had denied a suggestion from the Solicitor-General, Frank Mulholland, QC, prosecuting, that he "blocked Ina's killing out of his memory because it was so dreadful".

Some jurors wept as he told the court how he and his wife had a "strong and firm" marriage that lasted 52 years. He had never once struck her in all these years, and she had never hit him, the jury was told.

A spokesman for Victim Support last night said: "We never comment on specific cases, but at the end of the day the only people who can provide sensible judgment on a case are those who hold all the relevant evidence."

SPS insists that it could cope as nation braces itself for an epidemic

THE Scottish Prison Service has insisted it has the right facilities in place to tackle a vast majority of medical conditions – including mental-health illnesses such as dementia.

An SPS spokesman said: "We do definitely have prisoners with dementia, although it's not possible to say exactly how many. We have people in our prisons with all manner of medical conditions. The only exceptions would be those people with terminal illness, who have a few months to live that are better suited to hospital treatment." But Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said that in this case normal sentencing guidelines could not be applied.

"There are a lot of dementia sufferers who are not violent, and there may be questions about how to deal with this individual if he does not adhere to his restriction of liberty order," he said.

"The key thing in this particular case is that the judge has seen all the relevant medical reports. I am satisfied that the normal sentencing considerations could not be applied."

Campaigners have warned that health and social services could be overwhelmed by the vast numbers of people with dementia. Up to 65,000 people in Scotland are thought to have dementia, but it is estimated that the number of people affected will rise by 75 per cent by 2031 as the elderly population increases.

There have also been concerns in the past year that dementia patients could be denied drugs to slow down their progression because of a move by NHS rationing watchdogs. Alzheimer Scotland, a leading campaign group, has called for an additional £150 million to tackle what it has described as the dementia epidemic.

Although dementia often begins with increasing forgetfulness, a sufferer will increasingly require assistance with everyday activities, such as dressing and going to the toilet.

By the end of their life, dementia sufferers will probably be living in a care home, nursing home or hospital.

Fact from yesterday...

On this day in 1460 James II of Scotland was killed during the siege of Roxburgh Castle. The King was attacking the castle of his favourite enemy the Earl of Douglas when he filled a cannon with too much gun powder. The cannon exploded and killed him instantly.

This is a bit earlier than my Clan Gunn novel, but I still find this history interesting.

Things that interest me

I got this from Writing the Wrongs blog and thought it was something I might want to read again. It's much easier to save it on my blog--I know how to get here.

Ireland's Jews: Past, Present, Future
Rory Miller


● Irish Jews have historically played a role in Jewish life out of all proportion to their numbers, despite the fact that they were on the margins of the Jewish world. Before 1948 the Irish Jewish community, which had come overwhelmingly from Lithuania in the period from 1880 to 1914, was one of the most pro-Zionist in Western Europe and a major per capita supporter of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), as well as other Zionist organizations and institutions.

● Irish Jews have played a significant role in all sectors of Irish society including national political life, but since the early 1950s when it peaked at 4,500 members the community has been shrinking in size and influence. According to the 2006 census there are 1,930 Jews in Ireland, with about 1,250 residing in Dublin and the remainder scattered across the country.
● Although there have always been sporadic anti-Semitic incidents, Ireland has provided a safe haven for Jews. But the current widespread support for a boycott of Israel among civil society groups is a worrying development, as is the potential of the growing Irish Muslim community to become radicalized.

● The economic boom since the 1990s provided a number of opportunities and challenges for Irish Jewry. The strong economy led to an increase in the number of Jews who have settled in Ireland for economic reasons. It also, however, turned Ireland into a multicultural and multiracial society that has challenged Irish Jewry's status as the major non-Christian minority in the country.



In May 2008, the Dublin City Council organized a walking tour of "Little Jerusalem," the section of central Dublin historically at the heart of Irish Jewish life. In line with similar events, the organizers expected forty to seventy people to attend but were astonished when over two hundred turned up in the rain to hear about the history of Dublin's Jewish community.

The popularity of this event clearly highlights that as a subject of historical interest and cultural curiosity the Jews of Ireland are thriving. This has been further evidenced recently by the success of two books on the history of Irish Jews: the scholarly Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: A Socioeconomic History, by Professor Cormac Ó Gráda, and the more popular photographic coffee-table book, Jewish Dublin: Portraits of Life by the Liffey, a bestseller in Ireland on its publication in late 2007.[1]



The Historic Irish Jewish Community
The first Jews arrived in Ireland from Spain and Portugal in the early sixteenth century. The first synagogue was opened in Dublin in 1660 and the first Jewish cemetery opened in the early 1700s, by which time Dublin was the only city in the British Isles outside of London that could claim a Jewish community of any note. But this did not last long. As Ireland lost significance in the British Empire, the Jewish community shrank. The Irish census started recording religion in 1861, and in 1881 there were 353 Jews in Dublin and 61 in Belfast.

The ancestors of the current community were Lithuanian Jews who began arriving in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork in the mid-1870s. This resulted in an immediate rise in the population, with 1,500 Irish Jews in Dublin in 1891 and an estimated 3,000 a decade later.

This was still numerically insignificant. As Ó Gráda has shown in his socioeconomic history of Irish Jewry in the early twentieth century, Ireland only absorbed about 0.15 percent of the pre-1914 Jewish exodus from Eastern Europe. On the eve of World War I, there were 3,000 Jews in Dublin compared to 11,000 in Liverpool, 30,000 in Manchester, and 180,000 in London.[2]

Thus it is hardly surprising that the only encounter most people will have had with Irish Jews in this early period is through reading James Joyce's iconic novel Ulysses, which follows the fictional Leopold Bloom through Dublin city on one day in June 1904. Bloom, the baptized son of a Hungarian Jewish father and an Irish Protestant mother had little in common in terms of religious upbringing or daily life with the conservative, traditional, and hard-working Lithuanian Jews who made up the Irish community at the time.

These new immigrants were all from the same part of the northern Russian Empire and they settled near each other in urban areas. They had close ties with coreligionists in Manchester, London, and Leeds but as Ó Gráda has shown there were some noticeable differences. Dublin Jews lived in better conditions in "Little Jerusalem" than the Jews of the East End of London or many of the provisional Jewish communities of Britain. A lower percentage of Jewish women worked outside the home and the community was less strictly segregated from their neighbors than the Jews of Britain.[3]

The biggest difference was that almost immediately upon arrival this new immigrant group overwhelmed the preexisting Jewish community, swept away their influence, and marginalized what passed for an established Irish Jewish elite. This allowed the new immigrants to proceed to establish, unfettered, a highly nationalist community like the one they had left behind in Lithuania, thus arguably building the most Zionist-oriented community in Western Europe.



The Zionist Connection
Irish Jews' profound attachment to Zionism in the period before Israel's establishment can be traced back to the 1890s, when Irish Zionist Associations and branches of Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) were among the most active in Europe. In 1900, the Dublin Daughters of Zion (DDZ) was founded. This was the first women's Zionist society in Western Europe. To put this in context, it was not until February 1912 that Henrietta Szold convened the first meeting of the American Daughters of Zion, the first women's Zionist group in the United States.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF), Dublin Commission, developed into a not insignificant branch of the worldwide JNF and, from the late 1930s, its per capita contributions were higher than those made by communities in Leeds, Glasgow, and London. In his autobiography, Chaim Herzog, the Irish-born two-term president of Israel, recalled how during his childhood in Dublin and Belfast "the concept of a Jewish state emerged in our collective consciousness [and] added considerably to our sense of pride. As that consciousness expanded, it strengthened our entire community."[4]

The consequences of this could be seen after the birth of Israel. According to the political scientist Michael Brecher, in terms of individuals who occupied posts of head of an operational department or higher within the Israeli Foreign Ministry or related civil or military branches, Irish Jews equaled the contribution of Iraqis and Austrians, played a larger role than Jews from Hungary, Italy, or Egypt, and were only surpassed by Jewish immigrants from eight nations including Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.[5]

However, the vast majority of Irish Jews chose to stay in Ireland and by the mid-1950s, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs estimated that only fifty Irish families resided in Israel. Those who remained made a mark on almost every area of life, from literature and art to medicine and law.

Most notably, Irish Jewry has played a role in the political life of the country out of all proportion to its size. There has been a Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin three times (Robert Briscoe in 1956 and 1961 and his son Ben Briscoe in 1988) and of Cork once (Gerald Goldberg in 1977). Robert Briscoe, a founding member of the Fianna Fáil political party, represented that party in the Dáil (the Irish parliament) for three decades. Even in the 1990s, when the community was only 1,400 strong, there were three Jewish members of parliament (compared to one Protestant parliamentarian out of a community numbering well over 100,000). The sole current Jewish member of the Dáil, Alan Shatter, holds the distinction of having had more private members' bills passed than anyone else in the history of the state.

In the pre-1948 era Irish nationalists embraced Zionism as a national movement for self-determination and greatly admired the revival of Hebrew, which they saw as Zionism's greatest achievement. As a member of a Zionist delegation from Jerusalem wrote home during a visit to Dublin in 1931, Irish leaders were "greatly inspired" by the rebirth of Hebrew and confessed that Zionists had "more idealism" than the Irish.[6]

However, since Israel's establishment there has been a lack of diplomatic and political support for the Jewish state. In 1975, Ireland became the last member of the EEC to exchange nonresidential ambassadors with Israel, and in 1993 it was the last member of the enlarged EU to allow Israel to establish a residential embassy.

This slow move toward full diplomatic relations was due to a number of factors including the role of the Catholic church in influencing Irish foreign policy, the negative impact on Irish-Israeli ties of clashes over Irish troops serving with the United Nations in Lebanon, and the fact that the Irish beef industry, a major supplier to the Arab and Muslim world, was concerned that improved relations with Israel would damage this trade.

However, current Irish government policy toward the Israel-Palestine conflict is in line with general EU policy and on a bilateral level is primarily concerned with further developing trade ties that have grown significantly since the mid-1990s.[7]



Support for Boycott
A far more worrying factor is the growing support for a boycott of Israel among Irish civil society groups. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), the Irish branch of the International Solidarity Movement, is one of the most sophisticated anti-Israel groups in Europe. It organizes numerous events and has a state-of-the-art website that it uses to relentlessly promote the boycott of everything from Israeli agricultural products and football matches to flights to Israel and cultural and academic exchanges.[8]

In 2004, the IPSC collected twelve thousand Irish signatures in favor of a boycott, and its efforts have gained some support from supposedly apolitical NGOs such as Christian Aid and Trócaire. The IPSC also played a role in the call by sixty-one Irish academics for an academic boycott of Israel.[9]

Since entering the mainstream of Irish political life following the peace process in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), has become an outspoken critic of Israel in Irish political circles. However, this may actually improve Israel's standing in Ireland as the vast majority of Irish voters are suspicious of Sinn Féin's position on most domestic and foreign policy issues.

A far more troubling development occurred in June 2008 when the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) issued a report calling for a boycott of Israeli goods and services and disinvestment from Israeli firms. ICTU is the largest civil society body in Ireland, representing 832,000 workers and with fifty-five unions affiliated to it including IMPACT, the largest public-sector union in the Republic of Ireland and NIPSA, the largest public-sector union in Northern Ireland, both of which have also endorsed the call for a boycott.

There is no support for a boycott of Israel in Irish government or diplomatic circles and two primarily non-Jewish groups, the Ireland-Israel Friendship League and the Irish Christian Friends of Israel have worked hard to oppose the boycott. But that is little comfort given the fact that boycotters are making good ground in their effort to further demonize Israel across Irish society.



Anti-Semitism
The relentless call for the boycott of Israel is part of an effort to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state and its supporters across the world. This creates an uncomfortable environment for an Irish Jewish community that remains openly supportive of Israel. However, traditional anti-Semitism is not widespread and community spokesmen like to say that Ireland is the only country in Europe in which no Jew has died or been killed because of their religion. This is debatable, and indeed some historians believe that in 1923 a twenty-four-year-old Dublin Jew, Emanuel Kahn, was shot dead because he was Jewish.[10]

Moreover, there have been some unpleasant nonfatal incidents. The most notorious case occurred in Limerick in 1904-1905 when a Catholic preacher, Father John Creagh, led a boycott of several Jewish traders among the 170 Jews in a city with a population of forty thousand, which only ended when a number of Jewish families were driven out of the town. An IRA campaign against moneylenders in the mid-1920s focused primarily on targeting Jews, which caused significant concern in the community despite a number of IRA denials that any anti-Semitism was involved.

For the most part Jews who have settled in Ireland have found a safe haven. Recently, overt anti-Semitism has been a lot less prevalent than the racism encountered by new immigrants from Asia and Africa. From 2001 to 2003, according to the Jewish community's own statistics, there were no incidents of "extreme violence," "assault," or "damage or desecration of property" and only sixteen recorded cases of "abusive behavior." In 2002 alone, however, members of the Asian and African communities reported one hundred racist incidents to the authorities.[11]

But anti-Semitic incidents do continue. From November 2004 to July 2005, there was on average one recorded anti-Semitic incident per week in Dublin and these included the daubing of the Jewish school, an Orthodox synagogue, and the Irish Jewish museum with anti-Semitic slogans. In response the then justice minister Michael McDowell met with a delegation from the community and there was cross-party condemnation of these incidents in the Dáil. Again in May 2008, an Italian Jewish man living in a small town outside of Dublin had "Go Home Jew" and a swastika daubed on his wall and suffered two arson attacks on his car.[12]

One of the darkest chapters in Irish-Jewish relations was the refusal of neutral Ireland to provide a haven for Jewish refugees attempting to escape Nazi extermination in the late 1930s and 1940s. This was followed by the infamous decision of Irish leader Eamon de Valera to sign the book of condolences in the German legation in Dublin following the death of Adolf Hitler.

In 1995, then-Irish premier John Bruton acknowledged Ireland's failure in responding to the Holocaust and 2005 saw the establishment of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland. This body has contributed significantly to Holocaust awareness, with 450 schools involved in one of its projects. It also organizes a high-profile annual Holocaust memorial event that is attended by politicians and public figures.



Communal Size and Structure
The size of the Irish Jewish community peaked in the late 1940s at about 4,500 members. From that point on it fell in size until 2002 when the census recorded 1,790 Irish Jews. According to the 2006 census there are 1,930 Jews in Ireland, with about 1,250 residing in Dublin and the remainder scattered across the country.[13] The present community is elderly and the historic pattern of emigration to Manchester, London, and Israel continues among young people looking for partners or pursuing career opportunities and their parents who follow them.

The rise in the Jewish population by 7.8 percent from 2002 to 2006 is due to the arrival of Jewish economic migrants into Ireland as part of the "Celtic Tiger" economy. The Jewish community has attempted to capitalize on the Irish economic boom to advertise for immigrants from other Jewish communities across the world, especially those in Argentina and South Africa. Named Operation Springbok, the plan has had limited success for two reasons: those in charge of the project have only looked to attract observant Jews; and the Irish authorities will not waive standard visa requirements for what are essentially economic migrants.

As such, the largest increase of Jews in Ireland is among Israelis who have moved here to work in the hi-tech sector. Some have no interest in Jewish life, a few are outspoken critics of Israeli policies and have been co-opted into the anti-Israel movement, but a fair few have integrated into the community, attend synagogue, and enroll their children in the Jewish primary school. Whether this immigration will continue depends almost fully on the future strength of the Irish economy and, to a lesser extent, the willingness of the community to subsidize the settlement of new Jewish families and to invest in communal infrastructure.

Currently there are two Orthodox synagogues in Dublin, one Progressive synagogue, one Jewish golf club with non-Jewish members, one Jewish school, with an all-Jewish primary school and a mixed secondary school, and one Jewish retirement home where accommodation is shared with the Quaker community. The community no longer has its own kosher butcher, and kosher meat and other products are imported from the United Kingdom. Nor is there a Jewish community or sports center, as the Maccabi sports club, one of the best sports facilities in the country, was sold off a number of years ago.

The existing community institutions are overseen by the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI), whose members are either elected or appointed. This body has run the community since the late 1940s, when Irish Jews gave up their seats on the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the representative body of Anglo-Jewry, following Ireland's withdrawal from the British Commonwealth.

Irish Jews benefited from the "Celtic Tiger." Historically Ireland was not an industrialized nation and as such there was never a tradition of Jewish industrial grandees or magnates. However, Irish Jews have always had trades and skills, with more self-employed as a percentage of the population and a lower percentage of wage earners than other communities. Thus, by the time of the boom in the early 1990s, although there were very few multimillionaires, the vast majority of Irish Jews were part of the urban middle class.

At the heart of the Irish boom was the property market, an economic sector in which Irish Jews have long been involved. Many members of the community have become wealthy as the value of commercial and residential property has skyrocketed.

Interestingly, this wealth has not been reinvested in the community to any significant extent. Dublin Jewry has always had a much greater tradition of supporting Israeli charities than the needy within their own community. Some members have been reluctant to donate funds because their children have settled abroad. Moreover, major disagreements over the closure and sale of Adelaide Road Synagogue over a decade ago split the community. Whereas the sale of this synagogue along with the Maccabi sports club meant that the community gained some significant capital, this created a disincentive for individuals to give donations from their own pockets.



The Irish Muslim Community
The rise of the "Celtic Tiger" economy meant that for the first time in 150 years, from 1991 to 1996 Ireland saw net immigration rather than net emigration. Society has rapidly become both multicultural and multiracial. This is most clearly seen in the growth of the Irish Muslim community.

Muslims are now the third largest religious group in the country after Roman Catholics, who number 3.7 million or 86.8 percent of the population and the Church of Ireland, which has 125,000 adherents.[14] According to the 2006 census, there are 32,529 Muslims in Ireland, up from 19,147 in 2002, an increase of 69.9 percent in four years. The most obvious sign of this is that the once-Jewish area of "Little Jerusalem" now borders a vibrant and growing Muslim shopping quarter.

Over the last decade many European societies have been challenged by the multiculturalism caused by growing Muslim communities. The same process is now occurring in Ireland. In 2007, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the premier medical school in the country, announced that toilets in all new buildings will face away from Mecca "[out of] respect for the cultural diversity of the student population."[15] In May 2008, the Islamic Cultural Center, which is based at the largest Sunni mosque in Dublin, spoke of the "urgent need" for Sharia-compliant financial services in Ireland. And in June 2008, the government wrote to the heads of four thousand schools across Ireland to seek their views on the wearing of the hijab headscarf.[16]

At the time of the Danish Muhammad-cartoons controversy the reaction among Irish Muslims was relatively mild, with a few hundred marching in Dublin with placards carrying the words "Don't insult the Prophet." However, as has been the case in other European countries, much Irish Muslim funding emanates from Saudi Arabia and this can make the community vulnerable to Wahhabi extremism.

Moreover, there already are a number of groups in Dublin that have alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood. These include the Federation of Islamic Student Societies (FOSIS), the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), and the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR). This latter group was founded by the controversial Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi in 1997 and is permanently headquartered in the Islamic Cultural Center in Dublin. In 2003, the ECFR issued a fatwa endorsing "martyrdom operations" against Israel "even if the victims include civilians."[17]

On a national level there is growing concern that Ireland could develop into a base for money laundering, document forging, and even a transit base for terrorists. The security services listed radical Islamic extremism as the number one priority for 2006 and in the same year the chief of staff of the Irish army admitted, regarding Islamic extremists, that "there's always the danger that people would use Ireland as a back door to the UK."[18]

Although this is a challenge for the whole of Irish society, the rising influence of the Muslim community raises issues particularly for Irish Jews. The first is that the Islamicization of politics has never been good for Jews. There is a strong correlation between anti-Jewish incidents across Europe and a rising focus in domestic politics on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Irish Jewish museum was smeared the day after Yasser Arafat died in November 2004. Second, Irish Jews were historically the largest and most public non-Christian minority. According to the 2006 census, Judaism is now the fifteenth largest religious group out of twenty-three in a country of 4.2 million people. Islam ranks third, Orthodox Christianity is sixth, and Irish Jews also rank behind Buddhists (ninth), Hindus (tenth), and Jehovah's Witnesses (thirteenth).[19]

The 1937 Irish Constitution gave Jews special recognition and protection as the largest non-Christian group in a society overwhelmingly dominated by Roman Catholicism. However, the present marginal position of Irish Jewry could mark the beginning of the end of its influence on a national level. This has not yet happened as evidenced by the fact that in 2007 the Jewish community was one of the religious groups invited to participate in a new framework established by the government to facilitate discussion between the state and religious leaders on various matters. Moreover, symbolically important annual events continue such as the lighting of the menorah candles at the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the Chief Rabbi's televised address to the nation on the eve of the Jewish New Year.

Nevertheless, the community is undoubtedly at a crossroads. It is financially secure in the medium term but faces the abovementioned challenges without the benefit of any real leadership. This more than any other factor places in jeopardy the future viability of a once thriving community built from scratch by what Max Nurock, the Dublin-born and educated Jew who later became Israel's ambassador to Australia, remembered fondly as an "incomparable generation of Litvak [Lithuanian] pioneers."