Explore
Explore Limerick Archives through a changing selection of photographs and articles drawn from across the entire collection. Every page presents five photographic records and five researched articles in a newly mixed order. Each visit offers a different route into the people, places, buildings, streets, events, traditions and everyday experiences that shaped Limerick city and county. Familiar subjects appear beside lesser-known stories and unexpected discoveries. Browse freely, follow any record that interests you and return regularly to uncover something new. Created and curated by Gerard J. Hannan, the archive remains independently funded, freely accessible and dedicated to preserving Limerick’s history for future generations worldwide.
Each page shows 5 articles and 5 images from 248 articles and 573 images
Explore the Archives
Limerick Boycott
The Limerick Pogrom refers to an organised campaign of antisemitic intimidation and economic boycott centred in Limerick city that began after two sermons by Father John Creagh on 11 January 1904 and continued through 1906. Creagh’s speeches at Mount Saint Alphonsus accused Jewish traders of unscrupulous practices and urged Christians to withdraw custom. Immediate consequences included stone‑throwing at shops, street assaults, threats, and many Catholics refusing to trade with Jewish shopkeepers. Contemporary newspapers, Jewish communal reports and police correspondence document the sermon dates and the pattern of harassment that followed. Officials, clergy, affected families recorded incidents in letters and reports.
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Vanished Junction
This 1975 view captures the junction of Lower Henry Street and Sarsfield Street before the creation of Liddy Street transformed the surrounding cityscape. The photograph preserves a moment when traffic, shopfronts and older buildings still defined this busy corner of central Limerick. Lower Henry Street connected the commercial heart of the city with the Shannon quays, while Sarsfield Street formed an important route towards Sarsfield Bridge. The later development of Liddy Street altered movement through the area and removed part of the earlier streetscape. Today, the image offers a valuable record of a vanished junction and changing daily urban life.
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Civic Defiance
Edmond Sexten inherited his family’s extensive Limerick property around 1594 and became one of the most powerful, persistent and controversial figures in the city’s early seventeenth-century government. A grandson and namesake of the Tudor mayor who had acquired the former lands of St Francis’s and St Mary’s religious houses, Sexten served as an alderman, held the mayoralty several times and repeatedly occupied the office of high sheriff. His municipal service did not produce harmony with Limerick Corporation. Instead, much of his adult life was consumed by arguments over whether his inherited lands stood inside or beyond the authority of the city’s mayor and council.
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Dairy Expansion
County Limerick’s dairy economy was changing rapidly around 1900 as the Maypole Dairy Company strengthened the connection between rural milk production and large-scale commercial retailing. At Knocklong, where the company had built a creamery during the mid-1890s, farmers delivered milk for mechanical separation and butter-making rather than producing every finished article within their own homes. The operation linked surrounding farms with a business selling provisions across Britain. For local suppliers, the creamery offered regular access to a wider market, while the company gained a dependable source of Irish butter for an expanding network of urban shops.
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Coal Dues
A substantial case before Judge Richard Adams examined the Mayor of Limerick’s asserted right to receive dues upon coal brought into the city. The proceedings, reported on 12 January 1900, required the court to consider whether this inherited privilege rested upon royal charter, lease, long-established prescription or some combination of those authorities. Counsel disputed both the legal foundation of the claim and the capacity in which the Mayor exercised it. What appeared to be an obscure municipal custom therefore became a serious test of whether an ancient commercial right remained enforceable within Limerick’s modern port economy.
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Unlikely Nurse
Three young lion cubs raised with the assistance of an Irish red setter were placed on public view at Dublin Zoo on 16 January, attracting attention to one of the most unusual episodes in the Gardens’ long breeding history. The cubs had been born to the lioness Hypatia, but she refused to nurse them. Keepers were therefore forced to seek another source of milk if the litter was to survive. A goat was first employed for several days before the setter assumed the role of foster mother, accepting the vulnerable cubs and feeding them alongside the close supervision of zoo staff.
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Barricades Limerick
At Thomond Bridge in Limerick in 1923, a soldier stands guard beside a rough barricade near the Treaty Stone, a symbolic landmark now overshadowed by civil conflict. The scene evokes the tense aftermath of the Treaty split, when Anti-Treaty IRA forces and pro-Treaty National Army troops fought for control of the city. Sandbags, timber, stone, and street debris suggest hurried urban fortification, while the soldier’s watchful posture conveys danger and uncertainty. The bridge becomes both military checkpoint and historic threshold, linking Limerick’s medieval memory with the bitter street warfare that marked the Irish Civil War in the city that summer.
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Industry Memory
A hazy bird’s-eye view of Limerick in the 1920s stretches across rooftops, chimneys, lanes, and terraces fading into mist. Smoke rises from houses and workshops, softening the city skyline and giving the scene a wintery industrial atmosphere. A tall church spire dominates the distance, standing above packed streets and modest dwellings, while long rows of buildings suggest dense urban life along the Shannon. The elevated perspective captures Limerick as a working city of faith, labour, and close-knit neighbourhoods. Though blurred by age and weather, the photograph preserves a rare panoramic impression of everyday Limerick between war, industry, and memory.
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Local Identity
On Sarsfield Bridge in 1940s Limerick, the 1916 Memorial rises proudly beside the roadway, enclosed by green iron railings and watched over by elegant lamps. Its pale stone pedestal supports bronze figures commemorating the Rising, their solemn poses lending dignity to the riverside setting. Trees line the background, softening the urban scene and framing the monument against a bright open sky. Pedestrians in period dress walk along the bridge, suggesting ordinary city life continuing around a place of remembrance. The image captures civic pride, republican memory, and the enduring presence of national history within Limerick’s daily landscape and local identity.
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O’Connell Street
This 1937 view of O’Connell Street, historically known as George’s Street, captures Limerick’s principal commercial thoroughfare during a period of urban transition. Georgian façades, prominent shopfronts and the landmark clock tower frame a busy scene of pedestrians, cyclists, motorcars and public transport. Heavy coats and formal dress reflect everyday life before the Second World War, while traditional businesses line both sides of the street. Several buildings and upper storeys shown here were later altered or demolished during redevelopment. Despite extensive modernisation and pedestrianisation, O’Connell Street remains central to Limerick’s commercial, architectural and social identity within the changing modern city today.
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