The Limerick Boycott in Context

Historically it has been fashionable to view the Limerick Boycott as a deplorable but isolated incident. The essays in this volume expertly challenge this view, assiduously placing the boycott in much wider religious and political contexts. (Geoffrey Alderman, Professor Emeritus, University of Buckingham) The contributors brilliantly embed the Limerick Boycott amid the land and cultural movements that reshaped Irish society, while demonstrating convincingly that European trends informed those at the centre of the boycott. Equally, they use new sources to interrogate the contested memories that played a significant role in shaping earlier scholarship. (Timothy G. McMahon, Associate Professor of History, Marquette University) The Limerick Boycott, instituted in January 1904 by the Redemptorist priest, Fr John Creagh, remains Irelands most iconic symbol of anti-Jewish prejudice. A relatively minor, localized episode, the boycott has come to be remembered as a pogrom which effectively destroyed an established provincial Jewish community. This volume brings together new and established scholars in the fields of Irish History and Jewish Studies to provide the first in-depth, critical investigation of the history, historiography, and cultural memory of its events and their afterlife, by examining them through a variety of lenses: local, political, economic, theological/ecclesiastical, sectarian, and Jewish.