History of Limerick

The history of Limerick stretches back to its establishment by Vikings as a walled city on King's Island in 812, and to the granting of Limerick's city charter in 1197.
King John ordered the building of a great castle. The city was besieged three times in the 17th century, culminating in the famous 1691 Treaty of Limerick and the flight of the defeated Catholic leaders abroad. Much of the city was built during the following Georgian prosperity, which ended abruptly with the Act of Union in 1800. Today the city has a growing multicultural population.

Name

Luimneach originally referred to the general area along the banks of the Shannon Estuary, which was known as Loch Luimnigh. The original pre-Viking and Viking era settlement on Kings Island was known in the annals as Inis Sibhtonn and Inis an Ghaill Duibh
The name dates from at least 561, but its original meaning is unclear. Early anglicised spellings of the name are Limnigh, Limnagh, Lumnigh and Lumnagh, which are closer to the Irish spelling. There are numerous places of the same name throughout Ireland. According to P W Joyce in The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places II, the name "signifies a bare or barren spot of land". Similarly, others have suggested that the name derives from loimeanach meaning "a bare marsh" or "a spot made bare by feeding horses". The Dindsenchas , attempted to explain the name in a number of ways, connecting it particularly with luimnigthe and luimnechda.

Early history

Limerick's early history is virtually undocumented, other than by the oral tradition, because the Vikings were diligent in destroying Irish public records. William Camden wrote that the Irish had been jealous about their antiquity since the deluge and were ambitious to memorialise important events for posterity. The earliest provable settlement dates from 812; however, history suggests the presence of earlier settlements in the area surrounding King's Island, the island at the historical city centre. Antiquity's map-maker, Ptolemy, produced in 150 AD the earliest map of Ireland, showing a place called "Regia" at the same site as King's Island. History also records an important battle involving Cormac mac Airt in 221 and a visit by St. Patrick in 434 to baptise an Eóganachta king, Carthann the Fair. Saint Munchin, the first bishop of Limerick died in 652, indicating the city was a place of some note. In 812 Danes sailed up the Shannon and pillaged the town, burned the monastery of Mungret but were forced to flee when the Irish attacked and killed many of their number.

Viking origins

The earliest record of Vikings at Limerick is in 845, reported by the Annals of Ulster, and there are intermittent reports of Vikings in the region later in the 9th century. Permanent settlement on the site of modern Limerick had begun by 922. In that year a Viking jarl or prince called Tomrair mac Ailchi—Thórir Helgason—led the Limerick fleet on raids along the River Shannon, from the lake of Lough Derg to the lake of Lough Ree, pillaging ecclesiastical settlements. Two years later, the Dublin Vikings led by Gofraid ua Ímair attacked Limerick, but were driven off. The war between Dublin and Limerick continued until 937 when the Dubliners, now led by Gofraid's son Amlaíb, captured Limerick's king Amlaíb Cenncairech and for some reason destroyed his fleet. However, no battle is actually recorded and so a traditional interpretation has been that Amlaíb mac Gofraid was actually recruiting Amlaíb of Limerick for his upcoming conflict with Athelstan of England, which would turn out be the famous Battle of Brunanburh. The 920s and 930s are regarded as the height of Norse power in Ireland and only Limerick rivalled Dublin during this time.
The last Norse King of Limerick was Ivar of Limerick, who features prominently as an enemy of Mathgamain mac Cennétig and later his famous brother Brian Boru in the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib. He and his allies were defeated by the Dál gCais, and after slaying Ivar, Brian would annex Norse Limerick and begin to make it the new capital of his kingdom.
The power of the Norsemen never recovered, and they were reduced to the level of a minor clan; however, they often played pivotal parts in the endless power struggles of the next few centuries.
Brian Boru's son, Donnchad, was routed by Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó, King of Leinster, in the year 1058 when Limerick was burned, a punishment he repeated five years later. A year later Diarmait defeated Donnchad again forcing him to flee overseas and installing Turlough instead. Obviously Limerick was of great importance as evidenced by being a contentious issue between neighbouring chieftains and foreigners who burned and pillaged the city. Brian Boru's sons were usually called Kings of north Munster though their reigns were rather disturbed until 1164 when Donnchad mac Briain became King of Munster. His reign was successful, founding monasteries and nunneries, constructing several monuments, including a church on the Rock of Cashel, and in his grant bestowing his Limerick Gothic palace to the church he styled himself King of Limerick. However the Danes were still a powerful force who were able to obtain four sequential Danish bishops concentrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury not subservient to the See of Cashel.

Anglo-Norman era

The arrival of the Normans to the area in 1173 changed everything. Domnall Mór Ua Briain, the last styled King of Limerick, burned the city to the ground in 1174 in a bid to keep it from the hands of the new invaders. After he died in 1194, the Normans finally captured the area in 1195, under the leadership of Prince John. In 1197, King Richard I of England granted the city its first charter, and its first Mayor, Adam Sarvant, ten years before London. A castle, built on the orders of King John and bearing his name, was completed around 1200. Under the general peace imposed by Norman rule, Limerick prospered as a port and trading centre. By this time the city was divided into an area which became known as "English Town" on King's Island surrounded by high walls, while another settlement, named "Irish Town", where the Irish and Danes lived, had grown on the south bank of the river. In 1216 King John further granted the areas North and South of the River to City to be known as the "Northern" and "Southern" Liberties. Around 1395 construction started on walls around Irishtown that were not completed until the end of the 15th century.
The city opened a mint in 1467. A 1574 document prepared for the Spanish ambassador attests to its wealth:

Limerick is stronger and more beautiful than all the other cities of Ireland, well walled with stout walls of hewn marble...there is no entrance except by stone bridges, one of the two of which has 14 arches, and the other eight... for the most part the houses are of square stone of black marble and built in the form of towers and fortresses.

Luke Gernon, an English-born judge and resident of Limerick, wrote a similar description in 1620:

Lofty building of marble; in the High Street it is built from one gate to the other in a single form, like the Colleges in Oxford, so magnificent that at my first entrance it did amaze me.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Limerick became a city-state isolated from the principal area of effective English rule, the Pale. Nevertheless, the Crown remained in control throughout the succeeding centuries. During the Reformation tensions arose between those loyal to the Catholic Church and those loyal to the newly established state religion — the Church of Ireland.

Siege and treaty

Limerick was besieged several times in the 17th century. The first was in 1642, when the Irish Confederates took the King John's Castle from its English garrison. The city was besieged by Oliver Cromwell's army under Henry Ireton in 1651. The city had supported Confederate Ireland since 1642 and was garrisoned by troops from Ulster. The Confederates supported the claims of Charles II to the English throne, and the besiegers fought for a parliamentary republic. Famine and plague led to the death of 5,000 residents before heavy bombardment of Irishtown led to breach and surrender in late October of that year.
In the Williamite war in Ireland, following the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, French and Irish forces regrouped in behind Limerick's walls. Time and war had led to a terrible decay of the once proud fortifications. The occupying armies are recorded as claiming that the walls could be knocked down with rotten apples. The Williamite besiegers, while numbering 20,000, were hampered by the loss of their heavier guns to an attack by Patrick Sarsfield. In fierce fighting, the walls were breached on three occasions, but the defenders prevailed. Eventually, the Williamites withdrew to Waterford.
William's forces returned in August 1691. Limerick was now the last stronghold of the Catholic Jacobites, under the command of Sarsfield. The promised French reinforcement failed to arrive from the sea, and following the massacre of 850 defenders on Thomond Bridge, the city sued for peace. On 3 October 1691 the famous Treaty of Limerick was signed using a large stone set in the bridge as a table. The treaty allowed the Jacobites to leave under full military honours and sail to France. Two days later French reinforcements finally arrived. Sarsfield was urged to continue the fight but refused, insisting on abiding by the terms of the treaty. Sarsfield sailed to France with 19,000 troops and formed the Irish Brigade. From 1693 the Papacy supported James II again, and so the treaty was repudiated by the Williamites, for which the city became known as The City of the Violated Treaty and is a point of bitterness in the city to this day.