LIMERICK:

By: Joseph Jacobs

Seaport town in Ireland, in which Jews began to settle about 1881, after the Russian exodus. A synagogue was founded in 1889 in Colooney street, and in the same year a biḳḳur ḥolim. In 1901 it was found necessary to establish a Jewish board of guardians. On Jan. 11, 1904, Father Creagh, of the Redemptorist Order, delivered a violent sermon against the Jews, accusing them of ritual murder, of blaspheming Jesus, and of robbing the people of Limerick. On the following day there was a riot in which the Jews were attacked by mobs, and this was followed by a general boycott by the local Roman Catholic confraternity, numbering about 6,000 members. The chief ground for complaint against the Jews was the "weekly-instalment plan" by which they sold their goods. The outburst against the Jews drew forth many protests from Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy and laymen. The Jews of the locality suffered much from the boycott. Limerick has a population of 45,806, of which about 300 are Jews.

J.