Limerick Generations 2
Book 2 of 10 : 1910 ~ 1919
Between 1910 and 1919, Limerick passed through one of the most turbulent decades in modern Irish history. Home Rule divided political loyalties, labour organisation challenged established power, the First World War carried local men to distant battlefields, and the Easter Rising transformed the direction of Irish nationalism.
This second volume of Limerick Generations follows the people of Limerick city and county through those years of uncertainty and change. Political speeches and national crises are brought back to the streets, farms, schools, churches, railway stations, workplaces and family homes where their consequences were actually felt.
The book examines the rise and decline of constitutional nationalism, wartime enlistment and bereavement, the growth of Sinn Féin, women’s political organisation, the anti-conscription campaign, the influenza pandemic, the First Dáil, the Knocklong rescue and the extraordinary Limerick Soviet of 1919.
Alongside these major events, it explores the daily realities of housing, poverty, labour, education, agriculture, religion, public health, emigration, policing and family survival. Soldiers, workers, farmers, women, children, unionists, nationalists, republicans and ordinary householders all form part of a city and county being drawn into a new political world.
Written in a literary historian’s voice and grounded in contemporary records, newspapers, official reports and archival evidence, Limerick Generations: 1910–1919 presents history through the lives of the people who endured it.
The decade began with the hope that parliamentary politics might deliver Irish self-government. It ended with an elected Irish parliament, a growing revolutionary movement, labour unrest and a profound struggle over who possessed the right to govern.
This is the story of Limerick during years of war, rebellion, illness, grief, political awakening and unfinished change.
