Sitemap

A guide to the principal pages, collections, research tools and public sections of Limerick Archives.

The Limerick Archives sitemap provides a simple guide to the principal pages and collections available on the website. It helps visitors move between articles, photographs, research tools, contribution guidance, books, contact information and policy sections without relying entirely upon search. The structure is designed around the main ways people explore local history: reading stories, viewing images, following subjects, investigating sources and sharing knowledge. As the archive expands, individual collections may contain thousands of records, making clear navigation increasingly important. The sitemap therefore acts as a dependable starting point for visitors who want to understand how the website is organised.

The Home page introduces Limerick Archives and highlights material selected from across the collections. It provides direct routes to articles, images and search facilities, allowing new visitors to begin exploring without understanding the full structure. Featured material may change as new records are added or existing collections are revisited. The Home page is not a complete catalogue and should not be treated as a list of everything available. Visitors seeking a particular person, place, date or subject should continue to the relevant archive or use Search All Archives. Home remains the central return point from every principal website section available.

The Articles section contains written histories, researched features, biographies, event accounts and descriptions of Limerick city and county. Articles can provide context that a single photograph or catalogue record cannot contain, connecting people, places and events across time. Visitors may browse recent or selected articles, follow categories and use search to locate a particular subject. Opening paragraphs and titles help readers decide which pieces are relevant. Sources should be credited within the article or supporting information where practical. The Articles section is intended for general readers, students, families and researchers seeking clear historical narratives grounded in historical evidence and research.

The Images section leads to the Limerick Photographic Archive, where visitors can browse historical photographs and related visual records. Items are organised with titles, descriptions, dates, locations, subjects, credits, rights information and archive references when details are known. Search and filters can help narrow large collections, although some photographs remain unidentified or approximately dated. Individual image pages may also contain restoration status and links to related material. Visitors who recognise people, businesses, buildings or events are encouraged to submit corrections. The photographic archive provides visual evidence of Limerick’s streets, communities, workplaces, institutions and changing daily life across city and county.

The Explore section guides visitors through subjects, periods, places and selected collections. It is useful when somebody wants to discover material without beginning with an exact search term. Themes can connect photographs and articles concerning business, education, sport, religion, transport, politics, neighbourhoods, architecture and everyday life. Period pages may reveal how Limerick changed across decades, while location based routes can gather records from the city or county. Explore is designed to encourage unexpected discovery and show relationships between separate archive items. It complements direct search by presenting organised pathways through the broader historical record of Limerick city and county communities.

The Research section supports visitors who want to investigate Limerick history more deeply. It can provide guidance about sources, dates, places, archive references, citation and the interpretation of historical evidence. Researchers may use it alongside photographs, articles, newspapers, books, maps, directories and public records. The section should explain uncertainty and encourage comparison rather than presenting every archive description as final. Students can learn how to evaluate sources, while family historians may find routes towards additional records. Research pages also help visitors understand how Limerick Archives reaches conclusions and why some identifications remain approximate or open to careful ongoing public correction.

The Contribute section explains how visitors can submit photographs, documents, memories, corrections and local knowledge. It identifies the information that should accompany material, including ownership, creator, date, location, people and historical context. Contributors can learn how to prepare scans, describe provenance and raise privacy or copyright concerns before publication. The section also explains that submission does not automatically transfer copyright or guarantee acceptance. Contributions are essential because private collections often contain unique records absent from public institutions. This route allows families and communities to participate directly in preserving Limerick’s shared history for future generations throughout Limerick and around the world.

The Books section introduces publications by Gerard J. Hannan and explains their relationship to his wider writing and historical work. Visitors can explore titles, summaries and links to available editions. Book sales help support the independent development of Limerick Archives, although purchasing a book is never required to access public collections. Fiction, memoir, humour and history may each reflect different aspects of Limerick life and Gerard’s work as an author. The section remains separate from the archive catalogue so visitors can distinguish published books from historical records. It provides a clear route for readers who wish to explore Gerard’s works.

Search All Archives allows visitors to look for names, streets, businesses, dates, subjects and phrases across available content. Search results may include articles, photographic records and other indexed pages. Spelling variations, old street names and incomplete identifications can affect results, so visitors may need to try alternative terms. An archive reference is the most precise search when it is known. Search complements the sitemap by finding specific material, while the sitemap explains the broad structure. When a record cannot be located, visitors can contact Limerick Archives with available details or explore related categories and collections for additional useful historical clues.

The About, Contact and policy sections explain how Limerick Archives operates. About describes the project and founder, while Mission, Access, Accessibility, Copyright, Privacy, Terms, Accuracy, Corrections, Sources, Restoration, Contribute, Support and FAQ provide detailed guidance. Contact offers the main route for questions and submissions. These pages help visitors understand rights, responsibilities, research methods and image treatment before using material. The sitemap brings every principal route together in one place and should be updated when the website structure changes. Its purpose is practical: helping every visitor reach the historical information, guidance or service they need with minimal confusion or delay online.

About Page

Books Supporting the Archive

Every Book Purchased Helps Support The Continuing Work Of Limerick Archives.

Ashes

The Ashes Trilogy, Book One

Ashes begins the story of a group of children growing up in the streets and lanes of Limerick, where poverty and hardship are balanced by humour, imagination and fierce friendship. Their city is more than a setting: it watches, remembers and gives voice to lives often absent from official history. As the children explore their neighbourhood, they encounter family pressures, faith, hunger, danger and the first signs of a changing world. Through their adventures and loyalties, the novel captures the resilience of ordinary people and introduces the characters whose lives will unfold across the three volumes of The Ashes Trilogy.

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Gurriers

The Ashes Trilogy, Book Two

Gurriers continues the lives of the Limerick children introduced in Ashes as childhood freedom begins to give way to work, responsibility and harsher choices. Their friendships remain strong, but poverty, family expectations, faith and the pressures of growing older test loyalties once taken for granted. The streets and lanes still offer humour, adventure and belonging, yet the wider world increasingly intrudes upon their lives. Through vivid dialogue, memorable characters and the watchful voice of Limerick itself, the novel explores resilience, identity and change while showing how even the closest companions can be drawn towards futures by circumstances beyond their control.

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Scattered

The Ashes Trilogy, Book Three

Scattered concludes The Ashes Trilogy as the friends who once shared Limerick’s streets and lanes face adulthood, work, hunger, faith, family duty and emigration. Time has altered their ambitions, tested their loyalties and carried some beyond the city that formed them. Yet memory continues to bind Louie, Seamus, Joe, Sean, Peter, Tony, Bardy, Maura, Eileen, Nora, Lingo and the mysterious Gleamer. Narrated through the enduring presence of Limerick itself, the novel explores separation, sacrifice and survival while recognising the humour and affection that remain. Together, their scattered lives complete a moving portrait of friendship, community and change across changing generations.

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Threshold

The Troubles Trilogy, Book One

Threshold opens in Belfast in 1968, where the Catholic Devlins and Protestant Morrows confront a city divided by religion, memory and fear. Civil rights marches, police violence, riots and internment transform ordinary streets into dangerous frontiers while political conflict enters homes, workplaces and schools. At the centre are Aileen Devlin and Thomas Morrow, whose relationship challenges the boundaries their families regard as essential to survival. As loyalty hardens into suspicion, both must decide whether inherited allegiance excuses injustice. Through family arguments, upheaval and private courage, the novel explores love, conscience, division and survival during the opening years of the Troubles.

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Hunger

The Troubles Trilogy, Book Two

Hunger is Book Two of The Troubles Trilogy, set in Belfast during the 1980s. Aileen Devlin and Thomas Morrow have built a fragile life across the city’s sectarian divide, but the conflict threatens the home they created for their daughter, Claire. As hunger strikes, the Anglo Irish Agreement and violence reshape Northern Ireland, republican Declan and loyalist Billy exploit fear, grief and vulnerable young men. Against them stand Aileen, Kathleen and Elsie, whose quiet strength keeps their families human. This is a story of love, survival and the courage to place people before causes in a divided society under pressure.

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Crossing

The Troubles Trilogy, Book Three

Crossing concludes The Troubles Trilogy during the decade from 1990 to 2000, as Belfast moves from violence towards negotiation, ceasefires and uncertain peace. The Devlin and Morrow families face political change alongside grief, ageing, divided loyalties and the consequences of choices made across three decades. Relationships once threatened by religious boundaries are tested by memory, mistrust and the fear that compromise may betray the dead. As the peace process gathers momentum, ordinary people must decide whether reconciliation is possible. The trilogy closes with a story of endurance, forgiveness, loss and hope beyond inherited division, proving that peace begins with courage.

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Severance

Historical Novel

Severance is a historical novel set in Ballingarry, County Limerick, during Ireland’s struggle for independence. A torn and bloodied dispatch passes through fields, kitchens, lofts and hidden routes, placing everyone who handles it in danger. Michael Enright carries the burden of trust, while Mary, Molly and their neighbours struggle to preserve the message and protect one another. Against them, Captain Edward Harcourt studies every delay, wound and fragment for clues. As loyalty, fear and betrayal tighten around the hidden network, ordinary people must decide what they are willing to risk when history enters their homes and silence itself becomes dangerous.

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Limerick Generations: 1900 to 1909

Limerick Decalogy, Book One

Limerick Generations: 1900 to 1909 opens the decade by documenting a city and county entering the twentieth century amid political debate, commercial activity, poverty, faith and technological change. Month by month, the book connects major Irish developments with local events, institutions, streets and communities. Public meetings, labour, transport, education, sport, business and everyday life reveal how national questions were experienced in Limerick. Historical reports and carefully reconstructed narratives bring forgotten moments and ordinary people into focus. As Book One of Limerick Decalogy, it establishes the foundation for a ten volume journey through one hundred years of local history and memory.

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Limerick Generations: 1910 to 1919

Limerick Decalogy, Book Two

Limerick Generations: 1910 to 1919 traces a decade of political transformation, labour conflict, war, revolution and social change across Limerick city and county. Home Rule, unionist resistance, trade union organisation and the First World War entered streets, farms, schools, workplaces and family life. The Easter Rising, conscription crisis, influenza pandemic and general election altered public loyalties and expectations. The decade culminated in the Limerick Soviet of 1919, when workers challenged military restrictions through organised collective action. As Book Two of Limerick Decalogy, the volume preserves local experiences of hardship, courage, grief, endurance and change during years of intense historic upheaval.

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Restoring History

Limerick Archives preserves, enhances, restores and colourises historic photographs, sometimes presenting fresh angles on familiar scenes. When no suitable public-domain image exists, we create carefully researched AI illustrations for archive articles. We also invite the public to submit photographs for restoration and possible publication, with ownership always remaining entirely theirs.