Gerald Yael Goldberg (12 April 1912 – 31 December 2003) was an Irish lawyer and politician who in 1977 became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Cork. Goldberg was the son of Lithuanian Jewish refugees; his father was put ashore in Cork with other Jews and told that "Cork was the gateway to America."
Early life
Goldberg was born in Cork, the 11th of 12 children to Lithuanian Jewish emigrants Louis and Rachel (née Sandler) Goldberg. His birth name was Yael or Yoel; the anglicised 'Gerald' was chosen for him by his sisters in infancy.
Goldberg's father was a peddler and shopkeeper, and his parents were both born in the small village of Akmenė (Yiddish: Akmian or אוקמיאַן) and part of a wave of immigrants who fled antisemitism in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. In 1882, 14-year-old Louis set out from Riga for the United States, but was unaware how far the journey was and went ashore when the boat arrived in Cobh. At the docks he encountered Isaac Marcus, who regularly met boats to see if any other Jews arrived needing help. In Cork, Louis was invited to stay with the Sandler family, coincidentally also from Akmian, where he met Rachel. They were married nine years later.
The Jewish population in southern Ireland was growing steadily. In 1862, there was one Jew in Limerick, 35 in 1888 and 130 in 1890. By 1900, there were 25 families from Lithuania who had settled in Limerick. Louis Goldberg was very well-educated, speaking multiple languages, but worked as a street peddler in Ireland, walking on foot all over the island, before eventually opening a drapery store. He was able to bring his mother and two brothers over. However, he was beaten during the 1904 Limerick pogrom and his store boycotted, leading him to move his growing family to Cork.
Gerald Goldberg grew up in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox home. The family were active Irish Republicans, dangerous due to raids by the Black and Tans. His father hung the wedding photo of Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) on the wall, which satisfied a British officer they were loyal to the crown. It was a similar trick they had used in Russia, when hanging photos of the Tsar to avoid harassment by Cossacks. During the First World War, his father worked as a jam-jar supplier.
Goldberg was interested in politics from a young age. He saw the bodies of both Lord Mayors of Cork Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney lying in state, which had a profound effect on him, as did the four times he saw Michael Collins speak.
Gerald was educated at the Christ Church National School (Church of Ireland) and the Cork Central Model School (Roman Catholic), before being sent with his brothers to a Macaulay College, a Jewish boarding school in Sussex, England, for a few years. The brothers eventually ran into trouble when they refused to take part in Armistice Day events on account of the deaths of Mac Curtain and MacSwiney, and were given three lashes in punishment. This incensed their father, who ordered them to return to Cork. Goldberg continued his education at Presentation Brothers College (PBC) in Cork and University College Cork, serving as President of the University Law Society. Earlier he was refused permission to speak at the UCC Philosophical Society, one of UCC's two debating societies (the other being the Law Society) because of his Jewish background. Goldberg received an LLB from UCC and received a Master of Arts degree from the university in 1968, along with an honorary doctorate in Laws in 1993.
According to Goldberg's biographical entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, PBC's headmaster helped him to "overcome the reluctance of the Cork solicitors' firm Barry Galvin and Son to accept a Jewish apprentice." He reputedly attributed his choice of profession to familiarity with Talmudic law.
After qualifying as a solicitor in 1934, Goldberg had a career in Criminal Law practice in Cork for 63 years, once representing the noted Cork writer Frank O'Connor. He was the first Jewish President of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
Goldberg had a long career as a solicitor, and retired in 1996. He served on the council of the Southern Law Association (the Cork city solicitors' governing body) and became vice‐president, but was not re‐elected to the council in the year he would have become president by rotation. According to his biography in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, this Goldberg ascribed this to anti-Semitism, and resigned from the association and "was on bad terms with it for many years."