LIMERICK, a city, county of a city, parliamentary borough, port and the chief town of Co. Limerick, Ireland, occupying both banks and an island (King’s Island) of the river Shannon, at the head of its estuary, 129 m. W.S.W. of Dublin by the Great Southern and Western railway. Pop. (1901) 38,151. The situation is striking, for the Shannon is here a broad and noble stream, and the immediately surrounding country consists of the rich lowlands of its valley, while beyond rise the hills of the counties Clare and Tipperary. The city is divided into English Town (on King’s Island), Irish Town and Newtown Pery, the first including the ancient nucleus of the city, and the last the principal modern streets. The main stream of the Shannon is crossed by Thomond Bridge and Sarsfield or Wellesley Bridge. The first is commanded by King John’s Castle, on King’s Island, a fine Norman fortress fronting the river, and used as barracks. At the west end of the bridge is preserved the Treaty Stone, on which the Treaty of Limerick was signed in 1691. The cathedral of St Mary, also on King’s Island, was originally built in 1142-1180, and exhibits some Early English work, though largely altered at dates subsequent to that period. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St John is a modern building (1860) in early pointed style. The churches of St Munchin (to whom is attributed the foundation of the see in the 6th century) and St John, Whitamore’s Castle and a Dominican priory, are other remains of antiquarian interest; while the principal city and county buildings are a chamber of commerce, a custom house commanding the river, and court house, town hall and barracks. A picturesque public park adjoins the railway station in Newtown Pery.
The port is the most important on the west coast, and accommodates vessels of 3000 tons in a floating dock; there is also a graving dock. Communication with the Atlantic is open and secure, while a vast network of inland navigation is opened up by a canal avoiding the rapids above the city. Quays extend for about 1600 yds. on each side of the river, and vessels of 600 tons can moor alongside at spring tides. The principal imports are grain, sugar, timber and coal. The exports consist mainly of agricultural produce. The principal industrial establishments include flour-mills (Limerick supplying most of the west of Ireland with flour), factories for bacon-curing and for condensed milk and creameries. Some brewing, distilling and tanning are carried on, and the manufacture of very beautiful lace is maintained at the Convent of the Good Shepherd; but a formerly important textile industry has lapsed. The salmon fisheries of the Shannon, for which Limerick is the headquarters of a district, are the most valuable in Ireland. The city is governed by a corporation, and the parliamentary borough returns one member.
Limerick is said to have been the Regia of Ptolemy and the Rosse-de-Nailleagh of the Annals of Multifernan. There is a tradition that it was visited by St Patrick in the 5th century, but it is first authentically known as a settlement of the Danes, who sacked it in 812 and afterwards made it the principal town of their kingdom of Limerick, but were expelled from it towards the close of the 10th century by Brian Boroimhe. From 1106 till its conquest by the English in 1174 it was the seat of the kings of Thomond or North Munster, and, although in 1179 the kingdom of Limerick was given by Henry II. to Herbert Fitzherbert, the city was frequently in the possession of the Irish chieftains till 1195. Richard I. granted it a charter in 1197. By King John it was committed to the care of William de Burgo, who founded English Town, and for its defence erected a strong castle. The city was frequently besieged in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th century its fortifications were extended to include Irish Town, and until their demolition in 1760 it was one of the strongest fortresses of the kingdom. In 1651 it was taken by General Ireton, and after an unsuccessful siege by William III. in 1690 its resistance was terminated on the 3rd of October of the following year by the treaty of Limerick. The dismantling of its fortifications began in 1760, but fragments of the old walls remain. The original municipal rights of the city had been confirmed and extended by a succession of sovereigns, and in 1609 it received a charter constituting it a county of a city, and also incorporating a society of merchants of the staple, with the same privileges as the merchants of the staple of Dublin and Waterford. The powers of the corporation were remodelled by the Limerick Regulation Act of 1823. The prosperity of the city dates chiefly from the foundation of Newtown Pery in 1769 by Edmund Sexton Pery (d. 1806), speaker of the Irish House of Commons, whose family subsequently received the title of the earldom of Limerick. Under the Local Government Act of 1898 Limerick became one of the six county boroughs having a separate county council.
LIMERICK, a name which has been adopted to distinguish a certain form of verse which began to be cultivated in the middle of the 19th century. A limerick is a kind of burlesque epigram, written in five lines. In its earlier form it had two rhymes, the word which closed the first or second line being usually employed at the end of the fifth, but in later varieties different rhyming words are employed. There is much uncertainty as to the meaning of the name, and as to the time when it became attached to a particular species of nonsense verses. According to the New Eng. Dict. “a song has existed in Ireland for a very considerable time, the construction of the verse of which is identical with that of Lear’s” (see below), and in which the invitation is repeated, “Will you come up to Limerick?” Unfortunately, the specimen quoted in the New Eng. Dict. is not only not identical with, but does not resemble Lear’s. Whatever be the derivation of the name, however, it is now universally used to describe a set of verses formed on this model, with the variations in rhyme noted above:—
| “There was an old man who said ‘Hush! I perceive a young bird in that bush!’ When they said, ‘Is it small?’ He replied, ‘Not at all! It is five times the size of the bush.’” |
The invention, or at least the earliest general use of this form, is attributed to Edward Lear, who, when a tutor in the family of the earl of Derby at Knowsley, composed, about 1834, a large number of nonsense-limericks to amuse the little grandchildren of the house. Many of these he published, with illustrations, in 1846, and they enjoyed and still enjoy an extreme popularity. Lear preferred to give a geographical colour to his absurdities, as in:—
| “There was an old person of Tartary Who cut through his jugular artery, When up came his wife, And exclaimed, ‘O my Life, How your loss will be felt through all Tartary!’” |
but this is by no means essential. The neatness of the form has led to a very extensive use of the limerick for all sorts of mock-serious purposes, political, social and sarcastic, and a good many specimens have achieved a popularity which has been all the wider because they have, perforce, been confined to verbal transmission. In recent years competitions of the “missing word” type have had considerable vogue, the competitor, for instance, having to supply the last line of the limerick.