History of the Jews in Ireland
The history of the Jewish People in Ireland extends for almost a millennium. The Jewish community in Ireland has always been small in numbers in modern history, not exceeding 5,500 since at least 1891.
Middle Ages through 16th century
The earliest reference to the Jews in Ireland concerns the year 1079. The Annals of Inisfallen record that in that year "Five Jews came from overseas with gifts to Toirdelbach Ua Briain, the king of Munster, and they were sent back again oversea".No further reference is found until the 1169 Norman invasion of Ireland launched by Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke in defiance of a prohibition by Henry II of England. Strongbow seems to have been assisted financially by a Jewish moneylender, for under the date of 1170 the following record occurs: "Josce Jew of Gloucester owes 100 shillings for an amerciament for the money which he lent to those who against the king's prohibition went over to Ireland".
By 1232, there was probably a Jewish community in Ireland, as a grant of 28 July 1232 by King Henry III to Peter de Rivel gives him the office of Treasurer and Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, the king's ports and coast, and also "the custody of the King's Judaism in Ireland". This grant contains the additional instruction that "all Jews in Ireland shall be intentive and respondent to Peter as their keeper in all things touching the king". The Jews of this period probably resided in or near Dublin. In the Dublin White Book of 1241, there is a grant of land containing various prohibitions against its sale or disposition by the grantee. Part of the prohibition reads "vel in Judaismo ponere". The last mention of Jews in the "Calendar of Documents Relating to Ireland" appears about 1286. After the 1290 Edict of Expulsion of Jews from England, Jews living in the English Pale around Dublin may have had to leave English jurisdiction.
Jews certainly lived in Ireland long before Oliver Cromwell in 1657 revoked the English Edict of Expulsion. A permanent settlement of Jews was certainly established in the late 15th century. Following their expulsion from Portugal in 1497, some of these Sephardic Jews settled on Ireland's south coast. One of them, William Annyas, was elected mayor of Youghal, County Cork, in 1555. Francis Annyas, was a three-time Mayor of Youghal in 1569, 1576 and 1581.
17th to 19th century
Ireland's first synagogue was founded in 1660 near Dublin Castle. The community acquired a plot of land in 1718 that became Ireland's first Jewish cemetery, called Ballybough Cemetery. The cemetery is located in the Fairview district of Dublin, where there was a small Jewish colony.Emancipation
In December 1714, Irish philosopher John Toland issued a pamphlet entitled Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1746, a bill was introduced in the Irish House of Commons "for naturalising persons professing the Jewish religion in Ireland". This was the first reference to Jews in the House of Commons up to this time. Another was introduced in the following year, agreed to without amendment, and presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington to be transmitted to London, though it never received royal assent. These Irish bills, however, had one crucial result; namely, the formation of the Committee of Diligence, which was organized by British Jews at this time to watch the progress of the measure. This ultimately led to the organization of the Board of Deputies, an important body which has continued in existence to the present time. Jews were expressly excepted from the benefit of the Irish Naturalization Act 1783. The exceptions in the Naturalisation Act 1783 were abolished in 1846. The Marriages Act 1844 expressly made provision for marriages according to Jewish rites.Daniel O'Connell is best known for the campaign for Catholic emancipation, but he also supported similar efforts for Jews. In 1846, at his insistence, the law "De Judaismo", prescribing a special dress for Jews, was repealed. O'Connell said: "Ireland has claims on your ancient race, it is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews". During the Great Famine, in which approximately one million Irish people died, many Jews helped to organize and gave generously towards famine relief.
A Dublin newspaper, commenting in 1850, pointed out that Baron Lionel de Rothschild and his family had,
In 1874, Lewis Wormser Harris was elected to Dublin Corporation as Alderman for South Dock Ward. Two years later he was elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin, but he died 1 August 1876 before he took office. In 1901, Albert L. Altman, a successful Dublin salt merchant, was elected to the corporation as Usher's Quay ward Town Councilor. He served for three years until his death in 1903. During his time in office he was at the center of some of the most volatile nationalist controversies of the era, including the Post-Parnell split within the Irish Parliamentary Party, his own leadership of a Temperance-labor insurgency within Home Rule circles, and the council's decision to refuse a formal welcome to Edward VII on his first visit to the city as the new king, an event James Joyce made the centre of his Dubliners' story "Ivy Day in the Committee Room." Although a convert to Catholicism, Altman suffered Jew-baiting and antisemitic jeers throughout his many years seeking municipal office.
There was an increase in Jewish immigration to Ireland during the late 19th century. In 1871, the Jewish population of Ireland was 258; by 1881, it had risen to 453. Most of the immigration up to this time had come from England or Germany. A group who settled in Waterford were Welsh, whose families originally came from Central Europe.
In 1892 a new headquarters of the Dublin Hebrew Congregation was established. The building was consecrated by Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, who declared "Ireland is the only country in the world which cannot be charged with persecuting Jews".
20th century
In the wake of pogroms in the Russian Empire, there was increased Jewish immigration to Ireland, mostly from Eastern Europe. By 1901, there were an estimated 3,771 Jews in Ireland, over half of them residing in Dublin. By 1904, the total Jewish population was an estimated 4,800 people. New synagogues and schools were established to cater to the immigrants, many of whom established shops and other businesses. Many of the subsequent generations became prominent in business, academic, political, and sporting circles.On 10 September 1908 Irish Jews founded the "Judeo-Irish Home Rule Association" to advocate for Home rule in Ireland. It held its inaugural meeting at the Mansion House, Dublin, an occasion facilitated by Dublin Councillor Mendal Altman. The association pledged itself to "full grant of self-government, such as accepted by the Irish Parliamentary Party, to foster Irish industries and in general to promote the welfare and prosperity of Ireland".
The Republic of Ireland currently has two synagogues in Dublin, one Orthodox, one reform. There is a further synagogue in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The synagogue in Cork closed in 2016, although a new Reform Jewish community started after the closure - currently without a synagogue building.
From 1925 to 2002, a Jewish Scout Group operated in Dublin, the 16th Dublin, with its own campsite in Powerscourt Estate for much of that period. This is only Jewish Scout campsite to have existed in the UK or Ireland. One of the Scout Groups leaders Maurice "Morrie" Gordon was thought on his retirement to be the longest serving Jewish Scout leader in the world. He was awarded the Silver Elk, the highest award of the Scout Association of Ireland.
Limerick Boycott
The economic boycott waged against the small Jewish community in Limerick City in the first decade of the 20th century is known as the Limerick Boycott and caused many Jews to leave the city. It was instigated by an influential Redemptorist priest, Father John Creagh who called for a boycott during a sermon in January 1904. A teenager, John Raleigh, was arrested by the police and imprisoned for a month for attacking Rabbi Elias Levin, the community's rabbi, but returned home to a welcoming throng. According to an RIC report, 5 Jewish families left Limerick "owing directly to the agitation" and 26 families remained. Some went to Cork, where trans-Atlantic passenger ships docked at Cobh. They intended to travel to America. Gerald Goldberg, a son of this migration, became Lord Mayor of Cork in 1977. In 1970, Goldberg characterized it as a ‘near genocide perpetrated … against some 150 defenceless Jewish men, women and children’ and that Jews did not ‘need a dictionary to define a pogrom’The boycott was condemned by many in Ireland, among which was the influential Standish O'Grady in his paper All Ireland Review, depicting Jews and Irish as "brothers in a common struggle", though using language differentiating between the two. The Land Leaguer Michael Davitt, in the Freeman's Journal, attacked those who had participated in the riots and visited homes of Jewish victims in Limerick. His friend, Corkman William O'Brien MP, leader of the United Irish League and editor of the Irish People, had a Jewish wife, Sophie Raffalovic.
Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific Ocean. In 1914 he was promoted by the Pope to be Vicar Apostolic of Kimberley, Western Australia, a position he held until 1922. He died in Wellington, New Zealand in 1947. Joe Briscoe, son of Robert Briscoe, the Dublin Jewish politician, describes the Limerick episode as "an aberration in an otherwise almost perfect history of Ireland and its treatment of the Jews".
Since 1983, several commentators have questioned the traditional narrative of the event, and especially whether the event's description as a pogrom is appropriate. Historian Dermot Keogh sympathised with the use of the term by the Jews who experienced the event, and respected its use by subsequent writers, but preferred the term "boycott". Creagh's anti-Semitic campaign, while virulent, did not result in the murder of any member of Limerick's Jewish community. The 1911 census records that, not only were 13 of the remaining 26 families still resident in Limerick six years later but that 9 new Jewish families had joined them. The Jewish population numbered 122 persons in 1911 as opposed to 171 in 1901. This had declined to just 30 by 1926.