History: The story of the infamous boycott of the Jewish community in Limerick in 1904 is revealed through contemporary records, writes Diarmaid Ferriter.
Reflecting in 1993 on the impact of religion in the Ireland of his youth, novelist John McGahern recalled that preaching Redemptorists were appreciated like horror novels. "'He'd raise the hair on your head', I often heard remarked with deep satisfaction. Poorer performers were described as 'watery'." The latter description could not be applied to the Redemptorist Fr John Creagh, the director of the arch-confraternity in Limerick, who from the pulpit in January 1904, launched an emotive attack on the city's Jews, most of whom lived around Colooney Street. He was targeting a tiny community - about 25 families of Lithuanian Jews had settled in Limerick by 1900 - and insisted "they came to our land to fasten themselves on us like leeches and to draw our blood".
This book - a documentary history - deals with the context and impact of Creagh's incitement to hatred, or what became known as the Limerick Boycott. The authors decided not to use the word "pogrom" (it has been used in the past) to describe what happened, and on the evidence presented here, this was a wise choice. Many were more than willing to attack and boycott Jews, but there were many others, including the Royal Irish Constabulary, who defended them, physically and in print, and who ensured anti-Semites paid for their crimes. A member of the RIC, Constable McAvoy, expressed surprise at the boycott, as he believed the Jews "are examples of sobriety, industry and good conduct. They never break the law".
Nonetheless, for contemporary Limerick Jews this was a harrowing experience. Some invoked the memory of persecution in Russia (Kishbinev and Bessarabia) and had to witness Limerick mobs yelling "Down with the Jews: they kill our innocent children". Official police reports estimated that by the spring of 1905, eight Jewish families had left, five as a direct consequence of the Boycott, and that of the 26 families who remained, eight were "in good circumstances". This was not a pogrom, but it was nasty, menacing and duplicitous.
Despite the perception and the accusations, few Jews were involved in money lending; most were "pedlars", or small shopkeepers, selling household wares, or tea. Resentment existed about the payment by instalment system, but accusations that they were exploitative were investigated and convincingly dismissed by the reports of county inspectors in 1903.
This study consists of short narrative and contemporary documents, which are wonderfully reproduced, taken mainly from the files of the Chief Secretary's office in Dublin Castle. There is also extensive reproduction from contemporary newspapers. The documents selected succeed in engaging the reader and create a real sense of immediacy. The book will be an invaluable teaching aid, for both second and third level, which is particularly significant in light of the emphasis on documents in the revised history curriculum for secondary schools.
Those seeking a more comprehensive analysis of the documents may be disappointed. The narrative is very short, the chapters often end abruptly and avoid some questions that should have received more extensive treatment, particularly the extent to which local Catholic traders were the instigators of this boycott and the degree to which they were exploiting the poor in Limerick.
But the documents are wonderful. Here one can read the original news reports of Creagh's sermon; the editorial reaction of the Limerick Leader; the valiant attempt by Rabbi Levin (who showed impressive leadership) to detail and publicise what was going on; the intervention of Michael Davitt; a letter campaign by Julian Grande, director of the Irish Mission to Jews, and the criticism of the boycott by Church of Ireland bishop Dr Bunbry. Also documented are the reports of county inspectors and local police officers, and the detail by the Jewish community of assaults, verbal and physical, as well as reaction to the prosecution of 15-year-old John Raleigh, who was sentenced to a month in prison for throwing stones at Jews in Limerick.
Revealingly, there is only one letter abusive of Fr Creagh in the Redemptorist archives, signed by a "Galbally man and no Fenian". He deserves the last word:
So you low cur - had you nothing better to tell your people than to set them on the poor unfortunate Jews? You call yourself a Minister of God. You are a minister of the Devil. You are a disgrace to the Catholic religion, you brute.
Diarmaid Ferriter lectures in history at St Patrick's College, DCU and presents the RTÉ Radio programme What if?. His book, The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, was published last year by Profile and is on the shortlist for this year's Christopher Ewart Biggs Memorial Prize.
Limerick Boycott 1904: Anti-Semitism in Ireland. By Dermot Keogh and Andrew McCarthy, Mercier Press, 163pp. €20