Limerick boycott

The wife of Lieb Siev and his child were injured by stones and her house damaged by an angry crowd for which the ringleaders were sentenced to hard labour for a month.

[9] In 1904 Father John Creagh, a Redemptorist and Spiritual Director of the Arch Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, gave a sermon at their weekly meeting attacking Jews.

[4][10] He repeated many antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that of ritual murder, and said that the Jews had come to Limerick "to fasten themselves on us like leeches and to draw our blood".

The Jewish community immediately sensed the menacing mood of the crowd turned mob, and remained locked in their homes as the church militants passed by.

[12] John Raleigh, a teenager (15 years of age), was arrested and incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison for one month for throwing a stone at the rabbi (which struck him on the ankle).

[10] Limerick's Protestant community, many of whom were also traders, supported the Jews at the time,[failed verification] but despite this five Jewish families (numbering 32 persons) left the city because of the boycott.

[citation needed] Some of the families that left Limerick due to the boycott were the Ginsbergs, the Jaffés (to Newcastle), the Weinronks (to South Africa), and the Goldbergs (to Leeds).

But Montefiore's great-great-grandparents Benjamin and Rachel remained in Limerick and were living in Catherine St. in 1911[23] along with his great-grandparents Marcus and Leah, who at this time employed two local Roman Catholics who were resident at the same address.

The Land Leaguer Michael Davitt, author of The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia in the Freeman's Journal, attacked those who had participated in the riots and visited homes of Jewish victims in Limerick.

Arthur Griffith, who founded the Sinn Féin party in 1905, supported the boycott, advocating shunning Jewish-owned businesses in the city.

And we deny that we offend against ethics by most heartily advocating the boycott of usurers, whether they be Jew, Pagan or Christian.Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific.