Dean recalls refusal to offer refuge to Jews

The State's "shameful" failure to offer refuge to Jews in the 1930s is mirrored in our current attitudes to asylum-seekers, the Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral has said.

The Very Rev Dr Robert MacCarthy told worshippers at yesterday's Remembrance Sunday service that Ireland had a very good record in contributing to UN peacekeeping forces throughout the world, but needed "a more courageous commitment to human rights here at home".

He continued: "We failed shamefully to offer a home to Jews fleeing from the wrath of Hitler in the 1930s, just as we are failing miserably today to offer any credible response to the not-very-large flood of refugees arriving in our midst - witness the refugees sleeping in Mount Street this past week.

"Let us not pretend that the society we have in Ireland today is not in part our personal responsibility. Community attitudes are the inevitable result of innumerable individual attitudes and choices."

Dr MacCarthy said the phrase "They gave their tomorrows for our todays" haunted us each Remembrance Sunday, and begged the question: "Is Irish society today the sort of society for which those thousands of young Irishmen gave their lives in the first World War?"

He added: "It is a terrible but true fact that young Irishmen today are more likely to take their own lives. In the past 10 years the suicide rate of young men has increased by 800 per cent. What a judgment that is on what we have become in an Ireland affluent beyond their wildest dreams."

The President, Mrs McAleese, and her husband, Martin, were among the congregation at the service, which also included the British ambassador, Mr Ivor Roberts, and his wife, Elizabeth. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Mary Freehill, was also in attendance, as were Fianna Fail's Mr Ben Briscoe TD, Fine Gael's Mr Sean Barrett TD and Labour's Mr Proinsias De Rossa TD.

The exhortation "They shall not grow old. . ." was read by the president of the Royal British Legion Republic Of Ireland District, Maj. Gen. The O'Morchoe.

The vice-president of the Irish Naval Association, Lieut. Cdr F. Lynch, and Mr Roberts gave the readings, while the prayers were led by the Very Rev P. Culhane PP.

The standards of the Dublin Central, Dun Laoghaire and Irish Metropolitan branches of the Royal British Legion were paraded into the cathedral, along with those of the Royal Artillery, the Irish Guards, the Royal Air Force Association, the Irish United Nations Veterans' Association, the Burma Star Association, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal British Legion Republic of Ireland District.

As well as Mr Roberts, those laying wreaths included the ambassadors or other representatives of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, German, India, Israel, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation and the United States.

The Irish Rugby Football Union, the Dublin and Wicklow District of the Loyal Orange Institution and the Dublin Conservative Club were among the many civil organisations which also laid wreaths.