Posthumous deification is always a danger, particularly with someone who is the very stuff of legend.  Even in his mid-forties, Sarsfield was legendary.  By the time he died, he was already securely placed in the Irish Pantheon.  Today, he is still up there with the greatest: Mindful of our great instructors, Sarsfield, Emmet, Davis, Tone, [...]

Clothing the Confederacy: Taits of Limerick Sir Peter Tait was born in Scotland in 1828, but moved to Limerick at a young age. In 1844 he obtained a job working as a shop assistant in the Cumine and Mitchell department store. However, when trade grew slow Tait lost his position, … Publish Date: 05/11/2010 19:16 [...]

Wasn’t it Shakespeare who asked: “What’s in a name?” Despite Shakespeare’s obvious doubts, there can be a lot in a name, especially a place name. I don’t know if people in other countries are as interested in place names as are the people of Ireland. Perhaps some of them are. The most obvious reason why [...]

Even the promise of a bed to myself would not entice me from my hiding- place in the loft of McNamara’s house. Jim Mack, or Black Jim as he was known to his fellow fishermen, stood at the bottom of the ladder which led to the loft. ”Come down”, he said, ”they are gone”. I [...]

(Spoken in the Limerick dialect of the 1930s and 1940s) Me fahdur packed up and left us whin I was only eight years old, just whin I was gettin’ to know and really love him. For some reason or other, I don’t know what, a fella called Jeezez ‘called him away’. Jeezez was a fella [...]

I have read many little stories from the beautiful writers of Limerick, sure enough, some are maybe my school mates whom I have little recollection of now since 60 odd years have been like a slow drawn blotter on the blackboard of my life, erasing,erasing with that terrible screech every now and again as the [...]

Burton’s Billiard Saloon was for many a Limerick man a house of refuge in the ‘forties and early ‘fifties. Every morning of the week men stood in wait for ”Baw” Sullivan, the caretaker, to arrive. The long, mirrored, mosaic corridor, where men would have a final glance at their quiffs before going up to the [...]

A record of the Limerick – city and county men – who died in the Great War When I started to compile the record of Limerick Men who died in the Great War, I had fewer than ten names. This would turn out to be a gigantic task, but I felt it had to be [...]