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 The
"Limerick Pogrom"
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 Having
fled from persecution in Lithuania, a small number of
Jewish trades-people began arriving in Limerick in 1878.
They initially formed an accepted part of the city's
retail trade, centred on Collooney St. The community
established a synagogue and a cemetery in the 1880s.
Easter Sunday of 1884 saw the first of what were to
be a series of sporadic violent anti-Semitic attacks
and protests. A Jewish woman was injured and her house
damaged by an angry crowd. In 1892 two families were
beaten.
In 1904 a young Catholic priest, Father John Creagh,
of the Redemptorist order, delivered a fiery sermon
castigating Jews for their rejection of Christ, being
usurers and allies of the Freemasons then persecuting
the Church in France, taking over the local economy,
selling shoddy goods at inflated prices, to be paid
for in instalments. He urged Catholics "not to deal
with the Jews." The Limerick Pogrom was the economic
boycott waged against the small Jewish community for
over two years. Limerick's Protestant community, many
of whom were also traders, supported the Jews throughout
the pogrom, but ultimately Limerick's Jews fled the
city.
Many went to Cork, intending to embark on ship from
Cobh to travel to America. The people of Cork welcomed
them into their homes. Church halls were opened for
the refugees, many of whom remained. Gerald Goldberg,
a son of this migration, became Lord Mayor of Cork in
1977.
Struggle
for Independence
 The
IRA and the independence movement of Sinn Féin gained
popular support in Limerick following the repressions
and executions of 1916. Royal Irish Constabulary carried
out violent raids on the homes of suspected Sinn Féin
sympathisers. Prisoners were interned without trial
in Frongoch camp in North Wales. Following the arrest
and death of Robert Byrne, a local republican and trade
unionist, most of Limerick city and a part of the county
were declared a "Special Military Area under the Defence
of the Realm Act."
Special permits, to be issued by the RIC, would now
be required to enter the city. In response, the Limerick
Trades and Labour Council called for a general strike
and boycott of the troops. A special strike committee
was set up to print their own money and control food
prices. The Irish Times referred to this committee as
a Limerick Soviet; however, the high degree of involvement
of the Catholic Church shows that it was in fact quite
different from the recent Bolshevik uprising. An American
army officer arriving in Limerick had to appear before
the permits committee in order to get a lift to visit
relatives outside Limerick, following which he said;
I guess it is some puzzle to know who rules these parts.
You have to get a military permit to get in and be brought
before a committee to get a permit to leave.
After 14 days the strike ended with a compromise on
the permits issue.
Open conflict erupted on Roches Street in April 1920
between the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the general population,
involving bayonets on the one side and stones and bottles
on the other. The troops fired indiscriminately, killing
a publican and an usherette from the Coliseum Cinema.
The British Government organised a new force to quell
the population. The Black and Tans, known as "the sweepings
of English jails", were formed of ex-servicemen. On
the night of March 6, 1921, Limerick's Mayor, George
Clancy, and his wife were shot in their home by three
Tans. On the same night the previous Mayor, Michael
O'Callaghan, was shot in similar circumstances. These
assassinations became known as the Curfew Murders. IRA
reprisals included the unsuccessful attack on six RIC
men leaving a pub on Mungret Street and the murder of
a Black and Tan on Church Street. A truce between the
IRA and the British forces came into effect on July
9, 1921.
The
Free State
 On
December 5, 1921 Eamonn de Valera gave a speech (in
what is now Jury's Hotel on the Ennis Road) cautioning
against optimism in the peace process. A few hours later
in London, Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty,
granting limited independence to the southern portion
of Ireland as the Irish Free State, while retaining
Ulster. The treaty also gifted the ports of Berehaven,
Cobh and Lough Swilly to the United Kingdom as UK sovereign
bases, while annuities would continue to be paid to
the British government in lieu of money loaned to Irish
tenants under various land acts. De Valera and others
virulently opposed the treaty's compromises. The scene
was set for the civil war.
In Limerick, the first signs of trouble came when the
British forces withdrew early in the New Year. Three
separate Irish factions rushed in to fill the vacuum:
The pro-Treaty Claremen of the First-Western Division
under General Michael Brennan, who was asked by the
new Free-State government to occupy the city because
of doubts about the loyalty of Liam Forde's Mid-Limerick
Brigade. In the event the Brigade split into pro- and
anti-Treaty factions, the latter lead by Forde. William
St. became a battle zone by 7 p.m. on 11 July 1921,
when the Free Staters opened fire on the Republican
garrison holding the Ordnance Barracks. In the chaos,
Roches Stores, which still stands on Sarsfield St, was
looted.
On the 17th of July, Eoin O' Duffy arrived in the city
as part of a nationwide offensive, in command of 1,500
Free State re-enforcements equipped with artillery.
The Free Staters brought up an 18-pounder gun on the
19th and flattened the Ordnance Barracks. The Castle
Barracks was captured the following day. The Republicans
then abandoned the city. Limerick Prison, designed to
hold 120, contained 800 prisoners by November. The Civil
War ended the following May in victory for the Free
State. De Valera and the Republicans would refuse take
their seats in the new Dáil Éireann until 1927.
The Free State government set about rebuilding the county
in the spirit of the times, with grand plans and schemes.
The Shannon Scheme, the plan to build a Hydroelectric
power station utilising the energy of Ireland's largest
river, was begun in 1925. The German electric company
Siemens-Schuckertwerke (today Siemens AG) was awarded
the 5.2m pound contract, providing employment for 750
people. The Electricity Supply Board set up to manage
the project gradually oversaw the electrification of
rural Ireland. |
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