How Cork got its first Jewish lord mayor

Five decades ago, an electoral pact saw an Independent member of what was then Cork Corporation join Fianna Fáil, a deal that would result in the city electing its first Jewish lord mayor.

Yael (or Yoel) Goldberg was born in Cork City in 1912, into a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family, the 11th of 12 surviving children of Louis, known by his Hebrew name Laban, a peddler and shopkeeper, and his wife, Rachel, Lithuanian immigrants. The name ‘Gerald’ was chosen for him by his sisters.

Laban Goldberg was a door-to-door pedlar, selling household wares and holy pictures, and, like other men in his trade, his rounds took a week to complete, earning them the nickname ‘Weekly Men’, or, in Yiddish, ‘Vicklemen’.

Laban, a Lithuanian Jew and an ardent Irish republican, hung a picture in their home of Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra, the Prince and Princess of Wales, (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra), to fool raiding Black and Tans hunting down republicans. It was a trick he had learned in the old country, where Jews would dupe marauding Cossacks by displaying portraits of the Tsar.

Of his own identity, Gerald would say much later in life: “I am an Irishman, I am a Corkman, and, as both, I am a Jew.”

As a child, he would attend the lying-in-state in City Hall, in March and October of 1920, respectively, of both of Cork’s martyred lords mayor, Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney, sparking, it was said, his lifelong ambition to be lord mayor himself.

In his excellent 2023 book, Gerald & Sheila Goldberg of Cork: A Son’s Perspective, David Goldberg recounts his father’s recollections of being a small child during Cork’s revolutionary period.

“Everyone in our street went to the lying-in-state,” Gerald remembered, but he hadn’t wanted to go, because he came from a family of Kohanim, descendants of the priestly tribe of Levi, who are not allowed to visit a cemetery or be anywhere near a corpse.

Although he would try to explain this to his friends, they viewed his reluctance as a failing of “patriotism or cowardice. If you didn’t go, you were guilty of both, so I went.” He recalled: “Everyone had rosary beads except the Goldbergs, so we felt a little left out of it.”

In December of 1920, he witnessed firsthand the burning of Cork: “After my brother and I went to bed, about 11pm we heard the Crossley, and we went to the window and looked out. We saw uniformed men, Royal Irish Constabulary, forming a cordon across the street, turning people away. The city centre was cordoned off.”

Later, roused from their beds in their home in Parnell Place, they heard explosions and saw Patrick St aflame.

In a story recounted in his son’s book, a young Gerald was returning home from town with his younger brother, Ernie, one dark evening, when they were stopped and quizzed by a group of Black and Tans.

Asked if they were Catholic or Protestant, the terrified little boys replied that they were Jews. They were told to hurry along home, and they did not need to be told twice.

In another story, Gerald recalled witnessing a shawlie roaring at the Black and Tans in the street: “The Boers put ye in khaki, the Germans put ye in tanks, but it took the Irish to put ye in cages.”

Gerald was on the Grand Parade in March 1922 when Michael Collins addressed a crowd of 50,000, something which also had a profound effect upon the 10-year-old and left him with a lifelong reverence for Collins.

Entering politics 

Almost half a century later, in 1967, by then well-established as a successful solicitor who specialised in representing the impoverished, Gerald Goldberg was elected an Independent alderman for the north-west ward, only half-jokingly attributing his success to the gratitude of his former clients.

Goldberg would remain a councillor until 1985.

“Gerald’s politics were of the fiercely independent variety, based on his analysis of Irish and world affairs at that time,” remembers his great friend, senior counsel Dr John O’Mahony. “I, on the other hand, was very much republican, with a somewhat different perspective.

“I was invited to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1974 local elections, while I was continuing to practice as a medical doctor and study for a postgraduate degree in law at UCC.”

Dr O’Mahony received a huge first-preference vote and recalls that he was “comfortably elected, beaten only by the legendary vote-getter Pearse Wyse, TD, on the Fianna Fáil list of candidates”.

In the same local elections, Gerald Goldberg was elected in the south-east ward, having moved his base from the northside.

“Gerald was a senior member of the corporation in 1974, having been an alderman in the previous Cork Corporation. I was the youngest member of Cork Corporation elected in 1974,” Dr O’Mahony recalls.

“As we got down to business as members of Cork Corporation, Gerald and I had many discussions about the city and where it was headed. On a number of occasions he told me that, given his Jewish background, he would dearly love the honour of becoming lord mayor of Cork City.”

The two men had many discussions about MacCurtain and MacSwiney, and Dr O’Mahony recalls: “I was deeply struck by Gerald’s Irishness, and I felt it appropriate that Cork City would have this distinguished Jewish lawyer as its lord mayor.”

Joining Fianna Fáil

He conceived a plan, he says, in collaboration with his fellow Fianna Fáil councillor, David Buckley, a barber on Shandon St, to convince Mr Goldberg that he would never be lord mayor as an Independent councillor.

“To that end, I strongly urged Gerald to apply to join the Fianna Fáil party … At that time, the party had a majority on Cork Corporation, and was in a position to nominate the lord mayor for each year of the term of the corporation that was elected in 1974.”

There is uncertainty as to when exactly Mr Goldberg joined Fianna Fáil. His entry in the usually authoritative Dictionary of Irish Biography states it was in 1970, but David Goldberg writes that Dr O’Mahony and Dave Buckley “set about bringing him into Fianna Fáil. In or about 1973, Gerald joined a Fianna Fáil branch (cumann) in south Douglas.” However, that doesn’t quite seem right, either, because one of Gerald’s election cards, printed by Hickey and Byrne, Cork, ahead of the June 18, 1974 election, is reproduced in David’s book, and reads: “Vote No 1 Gerald Y Goldberg (Non-party)”.

He presumably wasn’t secretly a member of Fianna Fáil before the election, but he was definitely a member afterward. David writes that joining “was probably his last chance, according to John O’Mahony, to become lord mayor. He became a Fianna Fáil councillor, which enabled him to have a tilt at becoming lord mayor, but he had to wait a few years.”

According to Dr O’Mahony, it cost Dave Buckley and him “considerable time and effort to convince a majority of our fellow Fianna Fáil councillors”, but they eventually succeeded in getting Gerald Goldberg nominated, and three years later, on June 27, 1977, he was elected lord mayor of Cork. Dr O’Mahony would proudly serve as deputy lord mayor on a number of occasions.

“I was delighted for Gerald when he achieved the ambition of becoming lord mayor,” says Dr O’Mahony.

“Cork had many excellent lord mayors in its proud history. Gerald Goldberg was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished lord mayors of Cork ever.”

Time as lord mayor 

Mr Goldberg was a good lord mayor, showing a great flair for the largely ceremonial role, researching the history of the civic regalia, and publishing a pamphlet on the lord mayor’s chain and its connection with Terence MacSwiney.

He also issued a public appeal to the British Museum to return to Cork several of the city’s maces.

During his term, he opened the Holy Trinity footbridge, linking Father Mathew Quay and Morrison’s Quay with Union Quay. Given its proximity to the then synagogue on the South Terrace, local wits christened the bridge — and ‘christened’ is probably the right word — ‘The Passover’.

Although an avid Zionist, Gerald’s great affection for Cork saw him turn down high office in Israel, although that love would be sorely tested in 1982.

Hostilities between Israeli forces and Irish peacekeepers in South Lebanon sparked anti-Semitism here, leading to a firebomb attack on the Cork synagogue and death threats to Mr Goldberg.

He briefly considered leaving Ireland, but in a later, 1993 interview with this newspaper, he said: “I have an affinity with the people of Cork. I love them dearly. I love their culture, their traditions, their way of life. To live somewhere other than Cork would be my end, and I’m going to stay.”

No potted biography of Gerald Goldberg would be complete without remembering his wife, Sheila Beth Smith, a formidable influence on him and the mother of their three sons. They were an exceptionally close and loving couple who shared artistic and charitable interests, chief among them Meals on Wheels, the Cork Spastic Clinic (now Enable Ireland), and the Mahon-based Abode centre for adults with disabilities, which they founded.

When Sheila passed away, she was given a civic funeral.

Gerald died on December 31, 2003, in Marymount Hospice, after a long illness. The first chapter of David’s book begins with a quote from the then Evening Echo the next day, describing him as a “colossus” and “a towering giant of the legal world”.

He was laid to rest in a civic funeral in the Cork Jewish graveyard at Curraghkippane, and at his funeral members of Cork City Council wore skullcaps in his honour.