The Jewish community in Cork has celebrated the last night of Hanukkah in Shalom Park with the lighting of an art installation as part of what is known as the Evening Echo ritual.
The park is in the centre of an old neighbourhood known locally as 'Jewtown'.
Lord Mayor of Cork Fergal Dennehy joined members of what is now a small community to watch the symbolic lamp lighting.
The artwork, by New Zealand artist Maddie Leach, comprises a series of nine electric lamps - the tallest of which, the ninth lamp, is only lit for half an hour on the last night of Hanukkah.
This lamp is lit 10 minutes before sunset, and it remains lit for 30 minutes after sunset, when it is extinguished until next year.
"The Evening Echo project is an important annual marker that acknowledges the significant impact that the Jewish community had in Cork," Lord Mayor Dennehy said.
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"Moreover, this artwork acquires an additional significance because it illustrates the precarious balance and possible disappearance of any small community existing within a changing city.
"Evening Echo continues as a lasting memory of the Jewish community in Cork City," the Lord Mayor said.
Those gathered in Shalom Park expressed their solidarity with the Jewish community in Australia following the recent gun attack on Bondi beach in Sydney.
Lisa O'Connell, originally from Australia, said people were out to celebrate what is a festival of hope when it was desecrated by the gunmen.
Jewish community in Cork shows solidarity with people of Bondi Beach
"I grew up on the beaches of Australia and I couldn’t imagine anything more horrendous. I particularly wanted to be here today and express solidarity with my own community. Ireland is my home, I love Ireland but my heart is with my culture and my Australian people," Ms O'Connell said.
Her friend Ruti Lachs said the antisemitism she has experienced in Ireland is not overt but unpleasant.
"Life for a Jew in Ireland and in the world doesn’t feel very safe, especially after Bondi," Ms Lachs said.
Shalom park is on land, which was gifted by Bord Gáis to Cork City Council in the late 1980s and was re-dedicated as Shalom Park in 1989.
The art project was generated as the artist Maddie Leach's response to the particularities of place and locality and focuses on the legacy of Jewish communities in Cork.
It includes the sequence of custom-built lamps, a remote timing system, and a highly controlled sense of duration, but it also includes a list of future lighting dates, an annual announcement in Cork’s The Echo (formerly the Evening Echo) newspaper just ahead of the lamp lighting ritual, and a promissory agreement.
Now in its 15th year, the project continues to gather support from the Cork Hebrew Congregation, Cork City Council, Bord Gáis and its local community.
