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 City of Dublin 

An island west of Great Britain, forming part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  The earliest mention of Jews in Ireland appears toward the end of the eleventh century.

The island of Ireland is occupied by the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  There have been numerous conflicts through history, but now there is peace.  The tricolor flag of Ireland was created in 1848.  The orange stands for Irish Protestants, green for Irish Catholics and white stripes for the hope of peace between the two groups.  Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland, where 40% of the nation's population lives.  There are approximately 1 million inhabitants living in Dublin and only 3.5 million today.  The Jewish community is shrinking because of emigration to England, or North America, and a few to Israel.

Belfast is the second largest city and the largest in Northern Ireland with approximately 300,000 people.

The population of Ireland in 1800 was almost twice as large as the US. In 2000, the population of the US was more than sixty times that of Ireland.

Many surnames starts with "O" which means "the grandson of ..." and many with "Mac" which means "son of ..."

Most of Ireland's present Jewish community dates from the late 19th century when Jews from Lithuania fleeing pogroms arrived in Dublin, Belfast, Limerick and Cork.  Today, it is estimated that there are some 1,000 Jews living all over Ireland - mostly in II.  There is a great deal of information for those who may find themselves in Ireland in an article in the March 2008 issue of Hadassah Magazine authored by Alan M. Tigay.  Some of the highlights are included on this page.

Jews of Ireland were quite active from 1880 to the end of the 1940s.   There are (in 2008) about 1,200 known Jews.  Jews appeared, as indicated in the "Annals of Innisfallen" - a chronicle of medieval Irish history in 1079 when it was noted that "five Jews came from over the sea with gifts to Taridelbach (King of Munster) and then were sent back again over the sea?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Congregation_in_Ireland 

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=169&letter=I#516

Between the 12th and 18th century, small numbers of Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal, came and went but by the beginning of the 19th century, the Jewish community numbered only three families. More Jews emigrated to Ireland in the 1820s from England, Germany and Poland, but the biggest Jewish impact on Ireland in the mid-19th century came from one man who never lived there - Baron Lionel de Rothschild, the first Jew elected to the British House of Commons.  Rothschild contributed "a sum far beyond the joint contributions of the Devonshires, and Herefords, Lansdownes, Fitzwilliams and Herberts, who annually drew so many times that amount from their Irish estates" according to an article in the Dublin newspaper of the time.

In 1880, Dublin's Jewish community numbered 450 and were mostly quite prosperous. In 1900, Dublin had more than 3,000 Jews with smaller numbers living in Cork, Belfast, Limerick, Waterford and Londonderry.  Lithuanian Jews began arriving in 1881.  Many became peddlers, petty traders and moneylenders "credit drapers and weekly men" in the local parlance, according to Alan Tigey. 

Some of these immigrants got their "five pound stake" from the Hebrew Philanthropic Loan Society.  The second generation moved up the occupational ladder, as Jews became a major force in the manufacture of clothing and furniture.

Why should a new history of the Irish Jewish community be of any great interest? March 2007 has seen the release of preliminary results for the Republic of Ireland’s 2006 census of population. Out of a total population of 4.2 million, a mere 1,900 are Jewish, barely above that community’s level of 1,600 in 1991. By way of contrast, the Muslim population over the same fifteen years’ period has increased nine fold from 3,900 to 35,500, while the number of Eastern Orthodox Christians has shot up from a tiny presence of less than 400 to reach 20,800. Even the ethnic composition of the majority Catholic faith has changed, as the current Irish population also comprises 63,000 Poles and 25,000 Lithuanians.
http://www.drb.ie/more_details/08-09-28/Citizens_of_the_Republic.aspx 

Ireland also had a President of Jewish descent, Erskine Childers.  One of his ancestors was a 16th century Sefardic refugee.  Actor Daniel Day-Lewis' mother was an English-Jewess who bore him in London, but he became a citizen of Ireland in 1993.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=169&letter=I

Books 
         

"Citizens of the Republic"
Authored by Manus O'Riordan
http://www.drb.ie/more_details/08-09-28/Citizens_of_the_Republic.aspx

"Dublin’s Little Jerusalem"
Authored by Nick Harris, A & A Farmar, 229 pp
ISBN: 978-18991899047901

"German-Speaking Exiles in Ireland 1933-1945"
Edited by Gisela Holfter

"Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce"
Authored by Cormac O Grada and published by Princeton University Press.  It is a socioeconomic history of the community during its peak years.

"Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust"
Authored by Dermont Keogh

"Jews of Ireland"
Authored by Hyman, Louis from Earliest Times to the Year 1910 
ISBN: 0902528076 / 0-902528-07-6

"Limerick Boycott 1904: Anti-Semitism in Ireland"
Authored by Dermot Keogh and Andrew McCarthy, Mercier Press, 163 pp, €20
ISBN: 978-1856354530

General Ireland Genealogy Information

Archives

National Archives - in Dublin 
http://www.natinalarchives.ie/ 

http://www.familylink.com/ppc/?ss=ireland%20ancestor&pagename=ppcgd&eng=ga&ft=1&gclid=CN-N0o36168CFQgJRQodaSKMAA

Briscoe, Robert and Ben

   
   http://www.jewishireland.org/irish-jewish-history/history/

Robert, in the 1950s served as Dublin's mayor and was succeeded a generation later by his son, Ben.  Robert also smuggled arms for the Irish Republican Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Briscoe_(politician) 

http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t296316/

British Newspaper Library Catalogue 

Offers over 50,000 newspaper and periodical title holdings in Colindale.  The catalogue includes all UK national daily and Sunday newspapers from 1810 to the present; most UK and Irish provincial newspapers, some from the early 18th century upwards; selected newspapers from around the world in western and Slavonic languages dating from the 17th century upwards, including extensive holdings from Commonwealth countries and many other nations, and a wide range of UK and Irish popular periodicals coverall subjects from fashion, pop music, and cinema, to sports, hobbies and trades. 
http://www.bl.uk/collections/newspaper/  

for further information or for the site itself 
www.bl.uk/collections/newspaper/newscal.html

The British Library
Newspaper Library
Colindale Avenue
London, NW9 5HE, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7412 7353  Fax: +44 (0) 20 7412 7379
E-mail: newspaper@bl.uk
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-list

Castletroy, Limerick Jewish Cemetery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castletroy

Cemetery Information and Funeral Chapel

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mtoll/locate2.htm

http://www.cyndislist.com/cemetery.htm

Chaim Herzog

Israel's sixth president was born at 185 Clifton Park Avenue, Belfast, in 1918. His father, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, was Israel's first chief rabbi.
http://www.ulsterhistory.co.uk/chaimherzog.htm

Chief Rabbi of Ireland

Yaakov Pearlman who left a congregation in Rochester, New York to work with the 1,400 Jews living in Ireland.  The rabbi is a native of Manchester, England and was once the youngest rabbi in Britain at age 20.  He and his wife, will live in Dublin.
http://homepage.eircom.net/~jewishireland/rabbi.htm

County Antrim

http://www.visitballymoney.com/default.aspx

Familia

A web-based directory of family history resources held in public libraries in the UK and Ireland.  Updated and maintained by the Family History Task Group of the EARL Consortium, Familia is the on-line starting place to find information about materials in public libraries which will help you trace your family history
http://www.familia.org.uk/

Help for anything in Ireland

Stuart Rosenblatt in Dublin has compiled an incredible database of genealogical information about as many Jews living in Ireland as he has been able to collect. He is very responsive to email, is a good source of information.  Of course, as with any genealogical information, the facts he provides should be verified later by other kinds of documentation, but he is a good first source.
http://www.irishjewishroots.com/

Stuart Rosenblatt P.C. 
The Irish Jewish Genealogical Society
Jasonia Business Centre
76 Dame Street Dublin 2 Ireland
Email masterc@medianet.ie  
Phone ++353 1 677 3808

http://www.jewishireland.org/irish-jewish-history/genealogy/#

History of  the Jews of Ireland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHistory_of_the_Jews_in_Ireland#Pictures.3F

Irish - Jewish

     
    http://jewishmuseum.ie/jews-in-ireland/m_cohensons/

http://www.hagalil.com/golem/diaspora/irland-e.htm

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/records/church/jewish/

http://www.reference.com/browse/irish-jews

Irish Jewish History

http://www.jewishireland.org/irish-jewish-history/history/

http://www.irishtimes.com/ancestor/browse/records/church/jewish/

Irish Jewish Museum

      
    “A Nostalgic look at Clanbrassil Street and the Jewish Community
”   http://jewishmuseum.ie/tuesday-21st-august-3-00-pm-a-nostalgic-look-at-
    clanbrassil-street-and-the-jewish-community/

The second floor houses a former synagogue which is virtually unchanged as a sanctuary of the former Great Synagogue that seated upwards of 100 at a sitting. 
3 Walworth Road
Phone 353 1 490 1857
http://www.eecs.tufts.edu/~zblocker/ijm/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Jewish_Museum

IrishJIG

Subscribe to IrishJIG, the Irish Jewish Interest Group at
http://jcpa.org/article/ireland%E2%80%99s-jews-past-present-future/

Jewish  Genealogical Society of Great Britain

Offers many links of value to researching Irish/Jewish ancestors including many links: National Archives of Ireland;  Public record Office for Northern Ireland; UK & Ireland and more at 
http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/jgsgb-library

http://www.jewishgen.org/JCR-UK/

Jewish Home of Ireland

Danmark Hill
Leinster Road
Dublin 6 Mary Bartlett
Phone 353 1 4972004
http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/300_jewish_ireland.htm

http://www.haruth.com/JewsIrelandTribeStPatrick.html

Jewish Ireland

The website of the Irish Jewish Community
www.irishjewishcommunity.com  

http://homepage.eircom.net/~researchers/index.html

www.jewishireland.org

Jews In The Famine

Many Jews helped and organized and gave generously towards Famine relief, but none were themselves threatened by the Famine. The people who died and emigrated were those who, even in the best years, survived on potatoes they grew themselves on their scraps of rented land. Ireland's Jews were city folk, business people, professionals, merchants -- people who bought their food instead of growing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHistory_of_the_Jews_in_Ireland#Jews_in_the_famine 

Jews of Ireland Genealogy Page

Community History, Synagogues information, Cemetery information, Research information, a database and much more 
http://homepage.eircom.net/~researchers/index.html

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~researchers

Jewish Representative Council of Ireland

http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=89

Leopold Bloom

A Hungarian-Irish Jew
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/magazine/the-fading-world-of-leopold-bloom.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Maps

http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/irland/EncJud_juden-in-Irland-ENGL.html

http://www.12travel.com/goto/ie_maps/

Open Street Maps
The crowd-sourced mapping project OpenStreetMap has amassed a million contributors since its inception in 2005 and, according to navigation app maker Skobbler, boasts greater accuracy in England, Russia and Germany than rivals such as Google Maps.  I tried the site and found an accurate drawing of my father's ancestral town Tal'ne, Ukraine.  Almost every country is available as is most towns
http://openstreetmap.org

National Gallery of Ireland

Located on Merrion Square West
Phone 353 1 661 5133
Full of works on Hebrew Bible themes.
http://www.nationalgallery.ie/

National Museums of Ireland

http://www.nmni.com/um/News/Holocaust-Memorial-Day

Origins.net

A pay per view site that contains some of the collections of the Society of Genealogists (England)
http://www.origins.net/

Public Records Office in Dublin

Records were destroyed in a fire in 1922
http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/research_and_records_held/records_not_held_in
_proni.htm     

Trinity College Library    

The oldest college in Ireland and the library holds over 200,000 leather bound books  Phone: 353 1 896-1661
http://www.tcd.ie/Library/

UK and Ireland Genealogy

A large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
http://www.genuki.org.uk/

Cities and Towns of
Ireland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Limerick 

 Belfast

If you like digging for information, and have an interest in Jewish Belfast
http://www.jewishbelfast.com/

  Annesley Street Synagogue   

"Belfast"
An article authored by Phyllis Ellen Funke describing The Jewish Traveler in Belfast, was published in the Hadassah Magazine of November 2003. 

The article discusses the first Jewish resident , Manuel Lightfoot, who was a tailor in 1652.  The earliest Jewish birth registered is that of the son of Meir Levy in 1849.  On July 7, 1871, with only a small Jewish population of an estimated 50, a stone was laid on Great Victoria Street that became the synagogue, Hebrew school and clerical residence.  On February 26, 1904, a second synagogue at Annesley Street and Carlisle Circus was established.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews
_in_Northern_Ireland 

There were some 205 Jews in Belfast, five in Londonderry and others elsewhere in Ireland, making a total of 282 Jews by 1891. In 1896, the Belfast Hebrew Ladies Foreign Benevolent Society was formed. 

Jewish Belfast
http://www.jewishbelfast.com/

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Ireland.html 

Belfast Synagogue
49 Somerton Road
Belfast BT15 3LH 
Contact Aaron Engelmeir
Phone 44 2890 775013
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/Belfast/index.htm

Cork  

Sometimes called the "Venice of Ireland" due to the various branches of the River Lee that flows into its Harbor and the footbridges around the city.  There is a Jewish Community though small in size.  Cork is the second largest city in the Republic after Dublin. In the early 20th century, the Jewish community counted almost 500 souls, but the population has since dwindled to 20-30 Jews out of a total population of 135,000 mostly because of intermarriage.

Cork's Jewish immigrant families clustered in the Hibernian Buildings, a squat row of brick dwellings with sloped roofs and fat chimneys along Albert Road, located south of the town center.  There have been no Jews living here for at least after 1970 though there is a Shalom Park directly in front of the Hibernian Buildings.

Cork Hebrew Congregation
10 South Terrace
Cork
Mr. Fred Rosehill, Chairman of Trustees
Phone: 353 21 4870413 or 353 87 234 1274
http://www.corkhebrewcongregation.com/

Cemetery - Synagogue
The Orthodox synagogue, which is over 110 years old (built in 1896), still holds services and there is a Jewish cemetery still in use. The exterior appears to be of a lavender colored stone structure with three arched doorways, while the interior includes a central wooden Bima and a wraparound women's gallery and a skylight.  Only one service a month is scheduled
http://www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/ireland/cork-county-cork.html

http://www.jewishgen.org/JCR-UK/Ireland/cork1_hc/index.htm

Dublin  

"Little Jerusalem" area
Less than a mile south of central Dublin and was once the home of the very early Jews.  Jews lived and worked on the streets and lanes off the South Circular Road and Clanbrassil in buildings that are mostly neat rows of two-story, and brick Victorians and one story laborers' cottages.

In 1745, the town contained about forty Jewish families, comprising about 100 persons. In 1900, Dublin had more than 3,000 Jews.  In 2008 there are an estimated 1,300 Jews and another 400 scattered around the country.  In Dublin, they have moved from the Grand Canal area to the south Dublin neighborhoods of Terenure, Rathmines and Rathgar.

Cemetery
Around 1728, Michael Phillips presented the Dublin Jews with a piece of freehold ground at Ballybough Bridge (Village) for a cemetery and the Congregation of Bevis Marks in London assisted them financially in erecting a wall around the burial ground.
http://www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/ireland/dublin-republic-of-ireland.html 

Irish Jewish Museum

http://p-www.iwate-pu.ac.jp/~acro-ito/Joyce_pics2008/Joyce2008jDUB2/imageidx.html

Check the days and hours as it is open only three days a week; Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Records
Most of the original Dublin families' marriage records of Marys Abbey from 1845 from Camden Street Shul were recently discovered in Roscommon.  The Irish Jewish Genealogical Society has 23,400 names on file covering the 32 counties including birth, burial and marriage records from 1845 to 2000.
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/ireland/dublin.htm

Synagogues
The Jewish community around 1745, established a synagogue at Marlborough Green. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the synagogue was discontinued, and the borrowed torahs were returned to the Bevis Marks Synagogue. There are two former synagogue buildings remaining in the "Little Jerusalem" area, though both are now office buildings. 

The Adelaide Road Synagogue
37 Adelaide Road
A Moorish-Victorian structure with high arched windows and doorways.  It functioned until 1999 and the congregation moved to the Dublin Hebrew Congregation.  There is also remaining the former Greenville Hall shul at 228 South Circular Road with its Greek style columns and arched windows.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=169&letter=I#516

 http://homepage.eircom.net/~jewishireland/shul.htm

Knesset Orach Chayim  (Jewish Progressive Congregation)
7 Leicester Avenue
Rathgar, Dublin 6
For service times or for further information please email djpc@liberaljudaism.org
or call +353 87 2303435 Web site:
www.liberaljudaism.org

Dublin Machzikei Hadass Congregation (Orthodox Traditional)
Rathmore Villas, Rear 77
Terenure Road North,
Dublin 6. 
Mr. D. Ross
Phone: 353 1 4938991.
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/ireland/dublin11_machzikei/index.htm

Dublin Terenure Hebrew Congregation
Rathfarnham Road, Dublin 6
Mr. Michael Gilbert, President. 
Rabbi's Office Phone: 353 1 4972351.
The congregation is the largest and the only synagogue open in the city and follows Orthodox tradition and has Ireland's only Mikve.
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/ireland/dublin11_machzikei/index.htm

Mansion House
Residence of the city's Lord Mayor.
The building is located on Dawson Street, just off St. Stephen's Green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansion_House,_Dublin

Limerick

The history of Limerick , stretches back to its establishment by the Vikings as a walled city on King's Island (an island in the River Shannon) in 812, and its charter in 1197.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Limerick

Limerick Jewish Cemetery Slide Show
http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/23065322 

Contact Dr. S. C. O'Mahony, Director of the Limerick Regional Archives,
The Granary
Michael Street
Limerick, Ireland. 
Telephone 061 410 7777  Fax: 061 415125
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/ireland/limerick/index.htm

History
On January 18, 1904, "there were Anti-Semitic riots at Limerick, Ireland, in consequence of an address delivered by Father Creagh in a Catholic church." In addition, "there were renewed disturbances against the Jewish employees at the Dowlais (Wales) Steel Works."  From the American Jewish Yearbook.

http://irishecho.com/?p=52654

http://politico.ie/component/content/article/6238.html

more to come ... 

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