Douglas Tidy Towns volunteers remove antisemitic graffiti from trail

A group of eight volunteers gathered to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible on Friday morning.

Locals in a Cork suburb have been forced to remove a slew of racist and antisemitic graffiti from a scenic trail.

Message boards, used to educate visitors on local biodiversity and heritage at Ballybrack Woods trail in Douglas, were sprayed with messages written in German praising Adolf Hitler as well as the popular 1930s antisemitic slogan: “Jews out."

A nearby wall and sign were also sprayed.

Ken Rooney, the communications officer with Douglas Tidy Towns, said a group of eight volunteers gathered to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.

“One of our volunteers spotted it and texted into our WhatsApp group at about 8.15am on Friday,” said Mr Rooney.

“We all scrambled to get down there as soon as we could, and we were down at about 10am with our equipment.

There is no place for this in our community. We’d like to think Douglas is a very inclusive and multicultural place

“We were very shocked and saddened by it, especially given that they were on noticeboards used to educate children regularly.

"It boggles the mind, I don’t know what motivates this.

“We hope as few people saw it as possible, because we don't think it’s an accurate reflection of Douglas as a whole.” 

Sinn Féin Cork South Central TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said incidents such as this are “deeply upsetting and worrying" for the Jewish community.

“There must be zero tolerance of it,” said Mr Ó Laoghaire.

“Anyone who saw anything, I encourage them to contact gardaí so those responsible can be brought to justice.

“I commend the Tidy Towns [volunteers] for acting so swiftly. They are a credit to the locality and do a fantastic job.”