Protests expected at Irving war talk in Cork

By Emmet Oliver

PROTESTS are expected at University College Cork on Monday night when controversial right-wing historian Dr [sic] David Irving is due to address the student Philosophical Society.

Dr Irving, who has described the gas chambers at Auschwitz as "fakes" aimed at luring tourists, sparked heated debate in 1993 and 1988 when student societies invited him to address them. Those invitations were cancelled after threats of violence were made to the organisers.

On Monday [Nov 15] Dr Irving is to address the theme of "Myths of the Second World War". The invitation was made three months ago and Dr Irving confirmed his attendance earlier this week, said auditor Mr Stephen Vaughan.

The decision to invite the historian was criticised yesterday by the Socialist Party ID, Mr Joe Higgins. He said members of his party would be joining a protest by the Anti-Racist Coalition in UCC on Monday evening.

"Fascists debate not in the nice language of the Philosophical Society but with weapons in hand. Therefore I call upon the Philosophical Society not to be associated with this hatred and ignorance and to withdraw their invitation," he said.

Mr Vaughan said he held discussions with the security office at the college and was assured the meeting would take place without any disturbances. He said the society's job was to "provoke" debate and it was not endorsing Dr Irving's views by inviting him to speak. "We provide topics for debate and this is an important one," he added.

He said the society was seeking someone to speak in opposition to Dr Irving, but had been turned down by several people.

He said the UCC president's office had told him members of the public had lodged protests about Dr Irving's visit. The college president, Prof. Gerard Wrixon, was not available for comment last night.

Dr Irving rose to prominence with his 1977 book, Hitler's War, which suggested it was inaccurate to state that six million Jews died during the Holocaust. He claimed Adolf Hitler did not order the Holocaust and many of the Jews who died during the second World War perished from typhoid.

 [further stories: Irish Times | Cork Examiner, Nov 16, 1999]

CONTROVERSIAL HISTORIAN

Sir -- While asylum-seekers are forced to sleep in parks due to the indifference of our Government and the inability of officials at the Refugee Application Centre to cope, the UCC Philosophical Society is inviting the pro-Nazi "historian" David Irving to address it on Monday. November 11th.

Mr Irving has often spoken of the Holocaust as a Jewish exaggeration. He has been closely associated with the Ku Klux Klan [sic], with the apartheid regime in South Africa. with US anti-Semitic organisations and with the Canadian Ernst Zündel, who denies the Holocaust.

It is totally wrong of the UCC Philosophical Society to give David Irving a platform and thus help further fan the flames of Irish racism. The link between

the isolation of the Jews who sought asylum in vain before the second World War. and the isolation of asylum-seekers in our "can-do, well-off, aren't we wonderful little European country"" (Padraig O'Morain, Opinion, November 11th), is only too painful.

Yours, etc.,

RONIT LENTIN,
Leinster Road.
Dublin 6.

 [further stories: Irish Times | Cork Examiner, Nov 16, 1999]

Our opinion

 David Irving is of course not a doctor, nor a professor or Lord for that matter, either hereditary or otherwise; and he makes no claims to be a scholar either. Mr. Lentin has omitted to include the allegation that Mr. Irving supplied the trigger mechanism for the Oklahoma City Bomb, which the New York based Jewish Telegraph Agency recklessly spread in 1995, along with other earlier lies from the same source, e.g. that he as booked to appear on the same speaking platform in Stockholm as Hizbollah terrorist leaders, Louis Farrakhan, and the Hamas terror group. "Scholars" will soon be claiming that Mr. Irving is the mythical Abu Nidal himself.