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The boycott in Limerick in the first decade of the twentieth century is known as the Limerick Pogrom, and caused many Jews to leave the city. It was instigated in 1904 by a young Catholic priest, Father John Creagh, of the Redemptorist order who delivered a fiery sermon castigating Jews for their rejection of Christ, being usurers and allies of the Freemasons, taking over the local economy, selling shoddy goods at inflated prices, to be paid for in installments. He urged Catholics "not to deal with the Jews."

Background

Census returns record one Jew in Limerick in 1861. This doubled by 1871 and doubled again by 1881. Increases to 35, 90 and 130 are shown for 1888, 1892, and 1896 respectively. A small number of Lithuanian Jewish tradespeople, fleeing persecution in their homeland, 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 antisemitic attacks and protests. The wife of Lieb Siev and his child were injured by stones and her house damaged by an angry crowd for which the ringleaders were sentenced to hard labour for a month. In 1892 two families were beaten and a stoning took place on November 24, 1896. Many details about Limerick's Jewish families are recorded in the 1901 census that shows most were peddlers, though a few were described as drapery dealers and grocers.

Events

After hearing Fr Creagh’s sermon John Raleigh, a teenager was arrested and briefly imprisoned for attacking the Jews' rebbe, leader. Once released he returned home to a welcoming throng. Later, after eighty Jews had been driven from their homes, Creagh was disowned by his superiors saying that: religious persecution had no place in Ireland. The Limerick Pogrom was the economic boycott waged against the small Jewish community for over two years. Keogh suggests the name derives from their previous Lithuanian experience even though no one was killed or seriously injured. 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 ships from Cobh to travel to America.

Outcome

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, and the Marcus brothers, David and Louis, grandchildren of the pogrom, would become hugely influential in Irish literature and Irish film, respectively. The boycott was condemned by many in Ireland, among them the influential Standish O'Grady in his paper All Ireland Review, depicting Jews and Irish as "brothers in a common struggle". The Land Leaguer Michael Davitt (author of The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia), in the Freeman's Journal, attacked those who had participated in the riots and visited homes of Jewish victims in Limerick. His friend, Corkman William O'Brien MP, leader of the United Irish League and editor of the Irish People, had a Jewish wife, Sophie Raffalovic. Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific Ocean. In 1914 he was promoted by the Pope to be Vicar Apostolic of Kimberley, Western Australia, a position he held until 1922. He died in Wellington, New Zealand in 1947.

Terminology

Over the last 25 years, historians and writers in Limerick have questioned the traditional narrative of the event, with the question of whether the event's description as a "pogrom" is appropriate being "at the heart of the matter".

Writing in the Irish Times in 1984, Father Michael Baily described the use of the word pogrom for the event as "emotive" and as a "misnomer for minor disturbances".

In his James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize winning book Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust (1998), Dermot Keogh questions, given that there were no deaths or serious injuries, whether these events should be described as a "pogrom". He notes that various writers have described them that way, and states:

... based on their experiences in Lithuania, the word pogrom came immediately to the lips of Limerick's Jews when they found themselves under attack in January 1904. Those fears must further be seen in the context of a country which was overwhelmingly Christian.

In his later book Limerick Boycott 1904‬: ‪Anti-Semitism in Ireland‬ (2005), Keogh asks the same question. He cites Thomas Morrissey, who titles a section in his biography of Bishop Edward Thomas O'Dwyer "The Jewish Boycott", but also "acknowledges in his conclusion that in the minds of Limerick's Jews, it was the 'Limerick Pogrom'." Keogh concludes:

Ultimately, of course, it is for the reader to judge whether the events should be viewed as a boycott or a pogrom … The fact that we have chosen to entitle the book 'Limerick Boycott 1904' will indicate our preference, but nothing can detract from the terror experienced by the Jews of Limerick on the evening of Fr Creagh's first sermon.

In 2010, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Boaz Moda'i, commented on the pogrom stating: "I think it is a bit over-portrayed, meaning that, usually if you look up the word pogrom it is used in relation to slaughter and being killed. This is what happened in many other places in Europe, but that is not what happened here. There was a kind of boycott against Jewish merchandise for a while but that’s not a pogrom."

Footnotes

1. ^ Keogh (1998), pps. 26–30
2. Keogh (1998), p. 11
3. Keogh (1998), p. 31
4. ^ Keogh (1998), p. 19
5. Keogh (1998), pps. 12–14
6. Fisk, (1985), p. 430–431
7. Shalom Ireland: a Social History of Jews in Modern Ireland by Ray Rivlin, ISBN 0-7171-3634-5, published by Gill & MacMillan
8. "Provosts, Mayors and Lord Mayors of Cork". Cork County Council. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
9. Raferty, John (2001-09-27). "Oughtobiography by David Marcus". RTÉ. Retrieved 2008-08-05.
10. de Valera, Síle. "Louis Marcus resigns as Film Board Chairman". Press Release. Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. Retrieved 2008-08-05. {{cite web}}: Text "1999-11-03" ignored (help)
11. James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Construction of Jewish Identity by Neil R. Davison, p. 37, published by Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-521-63620-9
12. http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcreagh.html
13. Magill Magazine Issue 1, 2008, 46-47
14. Irish Times, 3 August 1984, quoted in Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland, By Bryan Fanning, p71
15. Keogh (1998), p. 26
16. Keogh (2005), pp. xv-xvi.
17. Limerick Leader, Saturday 6 November 2010, Jewish envoy says Limerick pogrom is 'over-portrayed'

References

• Fisk, Robert. In Time of War, Paladin: London, 1985. ISBN 0-586-08498-3
• Keogh, Dermot. Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Cork; Cork University Press, 1998. ISBN 1-85918-150-3
• Keogh, Dermot, McCarthy, Andrew. Limerick Boycott 1904: Anti-Semitism in Ireland, Mercier Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-85635-453-0

• Anti-Jewish pogroms
• Antisemitic attacks and incidents
• Christianity and antisemitism
• Jewish Irish history
• Jews and Judaism in Ireland
• Antisemitism in Ireland