DUBLIN COUNCILLORS WANT to push forward with plans to rename Herzog Park in Rathgar and Diamond Park off Gardiner Street in the city centre.

Councillors on the city’s Commemorations and Naming Committee met this afternoon to discuss the proposals.

A motion to rename was deferred, but the councillors agreed to write to Minister for Local Housing, Government and Heritage James Browne about the council’s authority to rename parks.

The discussion comes after the council’s chief executive dropped the controversial Herzog Park proposal in December because the local authority does not have the relevant powers. The proposal had been heavily criticised, including by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste.

Independent councillor Mannix Flynn said it was important to bear in mind that the withdrawal in December was for administrative reasons and was a result of the council not having the powers it needed.

The change of name was proposed in protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and due to former Israeli president Chaim Herzog’s involvement in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine before and during the 1948 Nakba – the mass displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli War.

A proposal to rename Diamond Park after 20-year-old Terence Wheelock who died in garda custody was also dropped for technical reasons late last year. 

The council committee is calling for Browne to grant the council powers to now proceed.

The issue is that existing legislation lacks specificity on how public ballots are to be held when a proposal from the Council is decided on by the public.

Councillor Dermot Lacey of the Labour Party said that existing legislation doesn’t account for whether or not a vote is held in person or not, or whether or not each household or each individual gets a vote.

Reddy, of People Before Profit, suggests that the ability of the minister to make provisions on the council’s proposals has effectively “stripped the powers of the council”.

Reddy said: “We have the weakest councils in Europe. Local government has to mean something.”

Related Reads

Opinion: Taking more care in how we choose placenames could help to avoid renaming furores

Dublin council chief insists no senior politicians pressured him to drop Herzog Park plan

Who was Chaim Herzog, the Irish-born former president of Israel?

Chaim Herzog was the president of Israel. Alamy Alamy

Dublin City Council has received legal advice on the matter.

The renaming of the park last December garnered international debate over whether Ireland should commemorate Chaim Herzog, the former president of Israel. The park, which was originally named Orwell Quarry Park, was renamed to Herzog Park, in 1995.

Reddy said the proposal has nothing to do with Herzog’s Jewish identity, highlighting suitable replacements Estella Solomons, a Jewish, Dublin-born artist and Irish Republican who died in 1968, and Max Levitas, a Jewish, Dublin-born communist and anti-racist activist who died in 2018.