Irish Hotel Reportedly Cancels 70 Rooms Booked for Antisemitism Conference Attendees

A Dublin hotel turned down an international conference dedicated to fighting antisemitism and later canceled about 70 rooms set aside for delegates, after its general manager asked whether the Israel Defense Forces would be connected to the gathering, according to a Jewish community leader present at the meeting.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, told News Outlet that he and an event organizer met with the Herbert Park Hotel’s management team, including the general manager, on May 7. The meeting was intended to explain the conference and finalize logistical details.

The gathering was held in connection with this week’s Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism Conference, which convened Jewish leaders, diplomats and government officials working to address antisemitism in Dublin, Ireland.

Organizers had received written confirmation that roughly 70 rooms were being held for conference attendees, Cohen said.

At the meeting, Cohen explained that the attendees would include Jewish community figures, diplomats and government officials, many of whom were not Jewish. He said the general manager’s tone appeared to shift before she asked whether the IDF would play any role in the event.

“I was completely taken aback by that question,” Cohen told News Outlet. “I said, ‘What would the IDF have to do with a conference on antisemitism?’”

Cohen said the hotel offered no immediate explanation. Instead, the general manager told him she would speak with the owners before determining whether the conference could take place at the property.

On May 8, the day after the meeting, organizers received an email saying the hotel could not host their “event,” Cohen said. Two or three days after the May 7 discussion, they also contacted the hotel to confirm whether the roughly 70 delegate rooms were still being held.

The hotel replied that the rooms were no longer available, saying they had been automatically released a week before the meeting, according to Cohen. He said that explanation was never raised when organizers met with management.

“Why would you hold a meeting seven days after the rooms had been canceled without mentioning them?” Cohen said. “To my mind, that excuse was a retrospective excuse.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told News Outlet, “If the reports from Dublin are accurate, this is a disgraceful example of the very antisemitism the conference was organized to combat.”

“Seventy rooms had been booked. Seventy people had been welcomed as guests,” Cohen said in an Oct. 13 speech at Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. “The only thing that changed was what they were understood to be.”

For Cohen, the incident carried particular personal significance. He said he had previously attended meetings, New Year’s Eve gatherings and his mother’s birthday celebrations at the hotel, including her 93rd birthday.

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“How quickly does the word ‘Jewish’ change a conversation?” Cohen asked in his address.

The alleged hotel cancellation is the latest incident prompting Irish Jewish leaders to warn about antisemitic discrimination in the country. Ireland has no official state system specifically tasked with recording antisemitic incidents, leaving community groups to track reports themselves and raising concerns that many cases go undocumented.

Ireland’s Jewish population is estimated at about 2,200 people. Even within that small community, the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland logged 143 self-reported antisemitic incidents during its first six-month reporting project. The reports included verbal abuse, threats, vandalism and discrimination, though the council said the figures likely understate the scale of the problem because many incidents are never reported.

Cohen said conditions for Ireland’s Jewish community have worsened since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. He described the broader environment experienced by Jewish and Israeli people in Ireland as “ambient antisemitism.”

News Outlet sent questions to the Irish government asking whether it condemns the hotel’s reported actions and whether any review or investigation is being considered. The office of Prime Minister Micheál Martin, the government departments responsible for foreign affairs and justice, and the Irish Embassy in Washington, D.C., were contacted for comment. None had responded at the time of publication.

In an exclusive interview with News Outlet in September, Martin said, “We have no toleration for antisemitism, none.”

“It’s all around us,” Cohen told News Outlet. “If you say you’re Israeli, you may not get into certain places. The narrative is so one-sided.”

When News Outlet reached the Herbert Park Hotel directly by phone and asked about Cohen’s account, the decision to reject the event and the subsequent release of approximately 70 rooms, a hotel representative responded, “No comment.”

Cohen said the hotel’s management should speak directly with Jewish community representatives and receive training on contemporary antisemitism.

“They need training on what antisemitism is,” Cohen told News Outlet. “They need to be cognizant of the fact they are promoting antisemitism. They need to understand why they’re so wrong.”

Cohen said several Irish lawmakers and civil servants contacted him personally after his Oct. 13 address, though he had not seen a broader public condemnation from the Irish government.

“I, like most people, don’t want to be in a place where I’m not wanted,” Cohen said.

News Outlet also reached out to the owners of the hotel through its corporate entity but did not receive a response by the time of publication.