The Curious Story of the Limerick

By Matthew Potter

This book creates an awareness of the connection between the place and the poem so that Limerick can establish itself internationally as one of the few places that gave its name to a literary form. It packs in a wealth of detail on the origins and history of the limerick, the Maigue Poets, and the various theories as to how it got its name, while also including numerous samples by various authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Mar 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9780993362880

Matthew Potter

Dr Matthew Potter is Curator of Limerick Museum. A graduate of the University of London (BA) and NUI Galway (PhD), he is the author of several books and journal articles.

Book preview

FOREWORD

The limerick is one of the most popular and widespread poetic forms in the English language, itself the most widely spoken language in the world. The poem shares its name with our own City and County of Limerick, but the connection between the two is often tenuous, which is a pity, as no other place in Ireland and few in the world have given their name to such a well-known literary form. Even more regrettable was the absence in print of a book on the connection between the place and the poem. Happily, this oversight has now been rectified with the re-publication of the 2013 work The Curious Story of the Limerick, which was researched and written by Dr Matthew Potter of Limerick Museum and published by The Limerick Writers’ Centre.

I think that all readers of this book will agree that it was worth the wait! Although many books have been written on the limerick, notably by Cyril Bibby and Gershon Legman, The Curious Story of the Limerick was the first to locate the poem in its local context and the first to be actually published in Limerick itself. This revised and updates version continues to move the story of the limerick and it origins foreward. It is a fascinating story, populated with a gallery of major and not so major literary figures, and one learns with amazement that the limerick form featured in the works of Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and even James Joyce. Even more interesting is the number of major figures from other spheres who were also composers of limericks: politics (Clement Attlee), music (Gilbert and Sullivan) and entertainment (Spike Milligan). However, the Maigue Poets are also given extensive coverage and Dr Potter has done a great service in restoring them to their rightful place at the centre of the limerick story.

I am glad to say that since the original publication of The Curious Story of the Limerick in 2013, attempts to build on the connection with the famous verse form are at last underway, not least due to the efforts of The Limerick Writers’ Centre and their continued efforts to promote the connection through their Bring Your Limericks to Limerick international poetry competition.

One of the great pleasures of The Curious Story of the Limerick is the manner in which the text is liberally sprinkled with examples of the form, which is only fitting in a work dealing with a type of poetry. Among these are examples by Brian J Slattery, one of the most notable local exponents of the limerick. For those who want to carry their research further, the book also contains a fine bibliography.

I salute Dr Potter for the breadth and comprehension of his research and I wish to pay tribute to The Limerick Writers’ Centre in the person of the indefatigable Dominic Taylor for having the wisdom and foresight to commission and publish this work, which will find a place in bookshelves worldwide.

Councillor Stephen Keary

Mayor of the City and County of Limerick

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe a debt of gratitude to a great many people in connection with the publication of this book. I am particularly grateful to Dominic Taylor of The Limerick Writers’ Centre for commissioning me to research and write it. I wish to acknowledge the contribution made by the staff of the various libraries and archives which I visited, including the Granary Library, Limerick; the Library, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick; the Glucksman Library, University of Limerick; and Limerick Archives. I would like to express my gratitude to other authors who allowed me to reproduce their poems in this book, particularly Brian J Slattery and Críostóir Ó Floinn. Last but by no means least, I want to warmly acknowledge the huge love and support of my beloved family: my wife Colette, our children Alex and Anna, my brother Michael and my mother-in-law Mary Tracey.

Pray search this wide land with a glimmer stick

For there must be some lad at his primer quick,

Who when pressed can supply

A lot better than I

An acceptable rhyme scheme for ‘limerick’.

Elmo Calkins

INTRODUCTION: THE LIMERICK AND ITS SCHOLARS

The limerick is the most popular poem in the world’s most important language, English. One third of the world’s population, amounting to two billion people, speak English as either their first or second language. Many of these have read limericks, laughed at limericks, or even tried to write their own limericks. As a result, the city and county of Limerick have a link to a global poetic community made up of millions of people from Canada to Australia and from Scotland to India.

Limerick is the only place in Ireland to give its name to a form of poetry or indeed any other literary form. Limerick is the name of both a city and county in the Republic of Ireland and of a form of poetry but the link between the two has never been properly established. One of the principal aim of this book is to create an awareness of the connection between the place and the poem so that Limerick can establish itself internationally as one of the few places that gave its name to a literary form. Think Shakespeare and Stratford, Joyce and Dublin, Burns and Scotland, Limerick and the limerick. To begin with, it is necessary to define both the place and the poem.

The Place

Limerick City and County are situated in the Province of Munster in the South of Ireland. They have a combined area of 680,842 acres, or 1,064 square miles and in 2016 had a population of 195,175. The greater Limerick city area, including parts of Counties Limerick and Clare had a population of 94,192 in 2016, making it the fourth most populous city in Ireland (after Dublin, Belfast and Cork) and third in the Republic.1 Limerick City dates back to the early tenth century (according to some sources founded in 922 by Thormodr Helgason known to the Irish as Tamar or Tomar Mac Ailche) while Limerick County was established in the 1250s.2

The origins of the place name ‘Limerick’ (which is ‘Luimneach’ in the Irish language) are very ancient but also somewhat unclear.3 The most commonly cited explanation is that ‘Luimneach’ means ‘a bare or barren spot of land’ but there are others that are less plausible though much more colourful.

One of these tells of the warriors of Munster and Connacht engaging in war games near the site of modern Limerick City and of how they left their grey-green cloaks (luimneach liathghlas) on the river bank while watching the two respective provincial champions fight in single combat. The River Shannon then swept all the cloaks away to the dismay of the crowd. Another story claims that Luimneach is derived from ‘lom an eich’ or the place eaten bare by horses as a result of an incident when the mounted warriors of an invading king grazed all of the grass on what is now the King’s Island. The Vikings may have given the city its name