Limerick, c. 1450-1800
Researcher: Dr Eamon O'Flaherty
On completion of the Irish Historic Towns Atlas volume for Limerick, I have accumulated a great deal of additional material which is not strictly speaking topographical in nature. This should provide the basis for a book-length study of social, political and religious change in an important urban environment across several centuries of Irish history. The time-frame for this study will be c. 1450-1800. At the beginning of this period Limerick was a late-medieval, largely self-governing corporate city. Within 100 years the urban community had to encounter the expansion of the central state and the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation, both of which had a profound impact on its political, religious and corporate culture. The conflicts of the seventeenth century, in which Limerick played an important strategic role, took place against this background of upheaval and transition. The final period, after 1690, saw a significant pattern of economic growth, particularly after 1750, fuelled by the interaction of a dynamic local elite and an expanding national economy. I envisage this work as taking much of the next f
