The "Limerick Pogrom"
[LIMERICK] This year marks the centenary of a shameful episode in Irish history known as the "Limerick Pogrom". On 11 January 1904, the director of the Catholic Arch-Confraternity of Limerick, Father John Creagh, delivered a sermon that sparked an outbreak of hostility against the city's tiny Jewish community. Incensed by Creagh's allegations — he called Jewish merchants "leeches" who were sucking the blood of the Irish by overcharging the poor — a mob marched on the Jewish quarter in Collooney Street, and it was only through the intervention of the Royal Irish Constabulary that the residents were saved from harm.
Creagh returned to the attack on 18 January. He told his flock that "the Jews have proved themselves to be the enemies of every country in Europe, and every nation has to defend itself against them." All Jewish businesses in the city were forced to stop trading as a result. Creagh then helped organize an economic boycott of Limerick's Jews that lasted for four months. Unable to earn a living, most of the city's Jews and their rabbi left Limerick. Many of them emigrated to the United States, which, given their particular history, was not without pathos. The majority of Limerick's Jews had originated in Russia and it is said that an unscrupulous sea captain, who had promised them passage to America, dropped them off near the Shannon estuary, saying that New York was "just up the road." From the 5 June 1998 issue of The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, here's an overview of Jewish life in Ireland.
