Campaign portraying mayor as anti-Semitic ‘sinister’

THE mayor of Limerick yesterday warned a “sick and sinister” internet campaign portraying him as anti-Semitic could seriously damage the city’s efforts to attract international industry.

Cllr Jim Long said a garda investigation has commenced after he made a formal complaint to Roxboro Road detectives.

Messages on Google attribute quotes to Mayor Long claiming he praised the 1904 pogrom in the city when many Jewish families were attacked and driven from Limerick.

The incidents reportedly followed inflammatory sermons given by Fr John Creagh at the city’s Redemptorist church, Mount St Alphonsus.

Comments attributed to Cllr Long include: “I want to remind you of the great work Fr Creagh did in getting rid of those Jews out of Limerick in 1904”.

Cllr Long said the campaign was not only damaging to him but was an attack on the city and people of Limerick along with the office of mayor.

A Garda spokesman at Roxboro Road station said: “We are investigating the source of these emails, having received a complaint from the Mayor of Limerick, Councillor Long.”

Cllr Long, 59, said while the offensive emails came from various addresses, they have all been sent from gmail.com accounts administered by Google.

A visibly angry Cllr Long said: “This is not about Jim Long; this is about the good name of our city and the mayoral office.”

The mayor said he can put up with members of the public having a go at him.

“I have been on the city council since 2004 and can take the heat of the kitchen and robust, fair, criticism but this is different. This is a nasty, sick and sinister campaign aimed not just at me but at the city and people of Limerick and the historic office of mayor,” he said.

Cllr Long said Limerick’s reputation as a high-tech university city which attracts some of the leading corporations in the world, could suffer as a result of the email campaign.

“What it is doing is portraying the mayor of Limerick as being involved in a vicious attack on Jews and inciting people to hatred. It has the potential to be very damaging to our reputation in powerful boardrooms around the world where we could be seen as a bigoted community.

“The world is now a very small place with the internet. I have many friends in the Limerick Jewish community,” he said.

“The days of Fr Creagh are dead and gone and the city and its leaders have, on a number of occasions at public ceremonies over the years, expressed deep apology over what happened in 1904. And these apologies have always been graciously accepted by the Jewish community. And I know the Jewish community in Limerick will also be very angry that their city is, in this day of 2011, being portrayed as being anti-Semitic. I am determined to do all I can, with the help of the Gardaí, to root this out.”