'Exceptionally important' historical Limerick documents uncovered by local historian

THE DISCOVERY of historical documents relating to Limerick city and county has gotten the history enthusiasts across Ireland in a stir.

The documents dating back to the late 1600s mostly centre around land and renting papers from c.1695 all the way to the 1900s, including old maps of Limerick and details about rent and properties in Limerick city and county.

Documents relating to an old school for poor protestant boys at the back of St Mary’s Cathedral dating from 1729 to the mid-1800s were also found - little was known about the school until they were uncovered last week.

Dr Paul O’Brien, a lecturer at Mary Immaculate College (MIC) came upon the documents encased in old, rusted metal containers due to a discussion of houses out on O'Callaghan Strand in the city.

“I was doing a walking tour in the city last autumn and we were discussing St Margaret’s Villa and St Stephen’s Villa. The owner of the house was out drinking a glass of wine and I feared he thought we were talking about his house without his permission.

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“He gave us a wave and we went on our way with the tour. Then a week or two passed and I was on Bedford Row and this guy said hello Paul and it turned out to be the gentleman with the glass of wine.

“His name is Brendan Dennehy and he was with his son Nigel. They invited me down for a tour of the house. We had a lovely tour and a great discussion about history and then Brendan said he had something up on his house that I might be interested in… I was presented with one or two boxes of documents and that was the start of it,” Dr Paul said.

Brendan had over 18 heavy-duty boxes containing the documents which were then transported to MIC.

“I’m heading back over to collect some bigger boxes next week. One of the boxes still at the house contains information regarding papers from Curraghchase House which burned down in the late 1940/50s.”

Brendan came into possession of the documents in the 1990s according to Dr O’Brien. He saw the boxes being disposed of from 74 O’Connell Street in the city.

“All of these boxes were headed for the skip and they rescued them. They unloaded the first set of boxes into the house and went back to get the rest and they were gone.

“Tragically Brendan, who is a retired accountant said he estimates that he only saved 20% of the boxes that were there,” Dr O’Brien mentioned.

Many of the boxes discovered were related to famous historical Limerick families, including Horace Stafford O’Brien (Cratloe Woods House), the O’Briens (Dromoland Castle in Clare), the Heusons in Rathkeale, the Pery family and the Westropp family.

Dr O’Brien says the discovery of the documents is exceptionally important for Limerick but it will take a long time to go through all of the boxes.

“It’ll be between two and four years.

“The boxes are packed full. I’m a historian, not an archivist so we will have to work with an archivist.

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“First thing first, they need to be moved over to the record room in Mary I which is fireproof and so forth. It’ll be put into archive boxes so the paper won’t deteriorate in them. A lot of the papers are held together with metal pins which are rusted and need to be taken out. It’ll cause the paper to deteriorate otherwise."

Dr O’Brien continued: “A lot of the material is dusty which can be quite dangerous and cleaning needs to be done by a professional as you can’t just wipe it down.

“You then have to make a list of contents and put them into context and write up a story on each of the families so it will all take time,” Dr O’Brien concluded.