President Higgins and Jonathan Swift - 29.1.25

St. Patricks Mental Hospital was one of the first institutions of its kind, built with 12,000 pounds left by Jonathan Swift, who ended his poem “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift”  with the lines:

       “He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And show’d by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor,
I wish it soon may have a better.”

I am sure President Higgins did not intend to insult the Jews and/or Israel when he spoke about the hostage and prisoner exchange on Holocaust Day, and I do not think the people in the audience who were insulted by his implications were expelled from the hall at his decree. But I do believe that they should remember what James Joyce said about how Ireland has much to learn from the Jewish people about reconstructing a culture and a nation.

But how can I blame Higgins?  I remember walking into an exhibit on the Bible in Dublin, and seeing elaborate illustrated books of the Bible in various languages – but not Hebrew.  Did they not know that the Bible was written in Hebrew?  

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