The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 39, March 27, 1841

by Various

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 39.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1841.

Volume I.

THOMOND BRIDGE AND THE CASTLE OF LIMERICK.

There is scarcely in all Ireland a scene which has so many exciting associations connected with it as that which we have chosen as the pictorial subject for the present number of our Journal. The bridge is indeed a new one; but it is erected on the site of that most ancient one which was the scene of so many a hard-fought battle for all that men hold dear; and the castle—ruined and time-worn, it is true—is the same fortress which served in turn the race by whom it was erected, and, as if partaking of the change which our soil is said to make in the feelings of all those who settle on it, became the last and most impregnable stronghold of those it was designed to subdue.

But some of the events connected with this scene—and these events, too, the most important—though honourable to the manly character of all concerned in them, and such as all the members of the great family of the British empire may now feel a pride in—are still associated with remembrances which to many are of a saddening cast, and which require to be softened by distance or time before they can be distinctly awakened without giving pain—like our country’s music, of which even some of the most exhilarating movements have strange tones of sorrow blended with them, which to many temperaments are too touching if strongly accented. And we do not therefore regret that in the short notice of Limerick Bridge and Castle which we have to present to our readers, neither our plan nor our space will permit us to give any sketch of their history but such as may be read by all, if not with pleasure, at least without pain.

The Castle and Bridge of Limerick owe their origin to the first Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, and were erected to secure their possessions and facilitate the extension of them. It is probable, however, if not certain, that the site of the castle had been previously occupied by a stronghold of the Ostmen or Danes who settled in Limerick in the ninth century, and with whom, if they were not its founders, its authentic history as a city at least begins; for the earlier historical notices connected with it relate only to its church or churches.

These churches, with whatever town may have been connected with them, were plundered by the Danes as early as the year 812; and there is every reason to believe that they fortified the island in the Shannon, or what is now called the English town, with walls and towers very shortly afterwards, as our annalists record the predatory devastations of the Danes of Limerick in Connaught and Meath as early as the year 843, as well as at various years subsequent. They were, however, at length conquered, but not removed, by the victorious arms of Brian Boru, and afterwards Limerick appears in history only as an Irish city, though its inhabitants were chiefly of Danish descent. It was here that Turlogh O’Brien, king of Munster, received in 1064 the homage of Donlevy, king of Ulidia; and his son and successor, Murtogh O’Brien, having given Cashel, the ancient metropolis of Munster, to the church, made Limerick his chief residence and the capital of the province, from which time it continued to be the seat of the kings of Thomond or North Munster, who were hence called kings of Limerick until its final conquest by the English in the commencement of the thirteenth century.

But though thus relieved from the terrors of foreign aggression, Limerick was not secured from the equally sanguinary attacks of the Irish themselves; and our annalists record the burning of the city by Dermod Mac Murrogh in 1014, the very year after the death of Brian, and again in 1088 by Donnell Mac Loughlin, king of Aileach, or the Northern Hy Niall. It was besieged in 1157 by Murtogh, the son of Niall Mac Loughlin, at the head of the forces of the North and of Leinster, when the Danish inhabitants were forced to renounce the authority of Turlogh O’Brien, and to banish him east of the Shannon; and though he was soon after restored to a moiety of his principality, he was obliged in 1160 to give hostages to Roderic O’Conor, to escape his vengeance.