Arthur Young was born in 1741, the son of a clergy man in Suffolk, England. When he was thirty-five years old, he took a journey around Ireland which culminated in the publication of “A Tour in Ireland 1776-1779”, which to highlight his journey throughout the country during this three-year period. Arthur Young was an avid…
The following extract comes from Ireland as “It Is And as It Would be Under Home Rule. Sixty-two letters written by the special commissioner of the Birmingham Daily Gazette, between March and August 1893.” by Robert John Buckley after he visited Limerick, on 22 April 1893. Robert John Buckley was born in Monaghan but moved…
The following extract was published first in the Ulster Times in 1836 and a year later in a bound volume of a tour around Ireland. It was written under the pen name J. K. The Limerick report was written in Killaloe, October 3, 1836 and read as follows: On the whole, we have been rather…
In September 1787, Michael Dennessy, also known as Michael Donoghoe a weaver from Limerick city was found murdered. For the next few months the main suspect remained at large. Strangely on January 19, 1788 a clerk by the name of Thomas Hogan walked into the city gaol where he penned the following letter to the…
In 1860 more than a thousand Irishmen took part in an extraordinary adventure travelling to Italy to fight for the Pope, Pius IX in the Italian unification movement. Among those serving in this Papal War was a Limerick man from Boherbouy who wrote to his parents in August 1860 from Spoleto, Italy. His letter was…
In 1879, a reporter from Melbourne Australia visited Limerick and wrote about it in The Argus newspaper.
The following article by Peter M’Cluskey, an Australian travel writer with the The Bacchus Marsh Express newspaper, was published in 27 August 1892 Limerick is finely situated upon both banks of the Shannon and King’s Island, which is formed by the Abbey river. It is divided into three main districts -English town, which occupies the…
Johann George Kohl (1808 – 1878) was a German travel writer in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1841 he wrote “Travels in Ireland” about his tour around the country, this book was translated to English in 1844. The following is an extract of his time in Limerick. Limerick, the third city of Ireland, now contains nearly…
Stephen Gwynn was born Dublin on the 13 February 1864 the eldest child of John Gwynn, warden of St Columba’s and later professor of divinity at Trinity College Dublin, and his wife Lucy Josephine O’Brien. Stephen Gwynn was the grandson of William Smith O’Brien the leader of the Young Ireland movement and MP for Limerick County…
The following strife between the Mayors of Limerick and Cork in occurred probably in 1876. The following story was widely reported in September 1876, and even reached as far as Australia, via the “Atlas of the World”, “Lyttetton Times”, “The sunniness of Irish life”. The Shannon Rowing Club represented Limerick. The mayor of Limerick in…
The following letter is from one of the three survivors of the Astrea shipwreck, who lost over 200 passengers, to his sister in Limerick. The ship ran aground on the 8th May 1834, and it was a number of weeks before families back in Ireland learned of the loss of their loved ones. This shipwreck…
Wisconsin became the 30th State in the Union of the United States of America on May 29, 1848. At the time the population of Wisconsin was over 150,000, which included many Irish emigrants striving for a better life over the ocean. In 1850 a Limerick Emigrant to Wisconsin sent the following letter to the London…
Samuel Reynolds Hole was an Anglican priest, author and horticulturalist in the late 19th century and the early part of the 20th. Hole was born in Newark and educated at Brasenose College, Oxford. He had a passion for roses a lasting friendship with the gardener Gertrude Jekyll, as well as with writers with Charles Dickens…
The following is a letter received by Limerick’s Life from Pam and John Walton, Sydney, Australia after their trip to Limerick in 2006. I have been privileged to have visited Limerick City on two occasions during recent times, endeavouring to trace the location from where my wife’s ancestors came. We were somewhat surprised the way…
Below is a letter, written by Eleanor McGhie, to her niece, Mary Mossop, in 1873. You can read an article pertaining to who Eleanor McGhie was and the period in which the letter was written. This is a very interesting letter as it is partially written horizontally and then vertically, this was common practice in…