Scottish knights, glamerous grannies and an overworked Garda band – for one week in the summer of ‘78, there wasn’t much going on in Newcastle West that failed to draw a smile. The Ten Knights of Desmond summer festival has since vanished into local lore, but 35 years ago it was a barmy, entertaining celebration […]
“Me Fahdur And Me Muddur”
(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 […]
Now my feet are planted in a far off land
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 […]
The Widow’s Penny
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 […]
Living and Dying in Limerick
Frank Thompson, one of Limericks oldest established Funeral Undertakers, was born at 43 Roches Street on the 30th. of November 1919. He had an unusual birth because he was born with a broken leg which resulted from a beating his mother received from the Black and Tans when they broke into his house looking for […]
The truth about 1935
Recent references to sectarianism in Limerick has aroused curiosity about what exactly happened here in 1935 – a date that deserves to go down in infamy in the history of Limerick. The really curious should consult Denis O’Shaughnessy’s Limerick: 100 stories of the century – if they are lucky enough to get their hands on […]
The Sarsfield Bar
I must have been twelve or thirteen when I had my first prohibitive glimpse inside No. 1 Rutland Street. My father had told me to wait in the car as he delivered a case of whiskey and a gift of blinking black & white dogs. He had problems negotiating the heavy door so I held […]
Images Of Limerick In The 70’s
These are images commissioned by the Limerick Corporation from photographer Michael Cowhey to record the last vestiges of old Limerick before it was transformed into the modern city of today. Click on an image to see an enlargement.
The Fourth Siege of Limerick
A HIGHLY interesting and original account of the Civil War in Limerick is published in an edition of the Old Limerick Journal (No 38). For many years, one of the participants in that bloody conflict, city man PJ Ryan, tried to get his account of what was to become known as the Fourth Siege of […]