A concert in Dublin that RTE promised would "express support for Palestinians" ended up glorifying IRA terrorism, promoting the slogan "F*** Israel," and calling Ireland's most prominent Jew a "prize dickhead." And it's not even over yet.

After two months, the John Gillick affair has finally reached the @IrishTimes. This is a noteworthy moment. Since late August, when screenshots of antisemitic posts to Gillick’s personal X account began circulating, only one journalist at one newspaper (@Fearghaloc at the @Independent_ie) has covered the story. The screenshots highlighted posts describing Jews as “human scum” and “filthy dogs,” and declaring that they “need to be thrown out” of Ireland. The Wayback Machine revealed a substantial archive of such posts going back to the start of last year. John Gillick is not a nobody. He worked at AIG for over 20 years. He headed consumer marketing and sponsorship, fronting the company’s partnerships with sporting bodies including Dublin GAA, the Golfing Union of Ireland, and Hockey Ireland. In March of this year, he was photographed with the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C. On 2 September, Gillick stated that his account had been compromised and that the antisemitic posts were not his. He reported the matter to the Gardaí, and that investigation continues. However, on Friday, AIG’s president and chief executive, Eric Andersen, confirmed to Orli Degani, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, that Gillick is no longer working for the company. Andersen does not run the Irish subsidiary, @AIGIreland. He has led AIG worldwide since June. It is significant, therefore, that a complaint from a handful of people in this country reached the CEO of a global insurer in New York. Degani thanked him specifically for the personal attention he gave it. But note the disparity here. The CEO of a multi-billion-dollar multinational corporation judged this matter serious enough to deal with himself. Meanwhile, most of the Irish press ignored the issue for eight weeks. Consider, by contrast, how a story last week about a Palestinian necklace being edited out of an episode of Cheap Irish Homes was instantly in the headlines of every major newspaper, TV station, and radio broadcaster in the country. That asymmetry reflects something that I have written about here before: a habit of looking the other way when Jews are being targeted. The elements of a story were always there: a senior figure in Irish sports sponsorship, a personal account calling for a minority group to be expelled from the country, a company inquiry, a Garda investigation into a claimed hack. Had the target of the posts been any other minority community in this country, it is hard to imagine having to wait two months for a second journalist to take an interest. Ms Degani says the case mattered “far beyond the actions of one individual,” and she is right. The issue was never about what was posted on one account. It is about whether Irish Jews can trust that when things like this happen, they will be taken seriously by employers, by the Gardaí, by the media, and by the public. Her closing point is that reporting antisemitism matters. It does, but so does reporting on it. irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/…