The Limerick Boycott in Context

Acknowledgements

We extend our thanks to the contributors to this volume for their enthusiasm for this project, for sharing their research, and for their diligence in attending to our many queries and requests during the editing process. We are grateful also to our own editors at Peter Lang Ltd, Anthony Mason and Eamon Maher, for their support, encouragement, and patience throughout.

Dramatis Personae, 1904

Creagh, John: Redemptorist priest born in Thomondgate, Limerick in 1870. Entered the Redemptorist order in 1884. Underwent training in England and ordained in Devon in 1895. Returned to Ireland and taught theology and scripture at Redemptorist institutions. Served as spiritual director of Limerick’s Arch-Confraternity of the Holy Family from April 1902 until his departure on missionary work to the Philippines in May 1906. Subsequently served in New Zealand and Australia, and died in Wellington in 1947.

******

Transcripts of the Anti-Jewish Sermons delivered by Fr John Creagh on 11 and 18 January 1904

First Sermon: Delivered 11 January 1904¹

‘In beginning to speak to you to-night the first thought that would naturally come to one’s mind is what about Christian charity? Does not the law of Our Lord Jesus Christ bind us to love all men, to look upon men as our brothers, and even to do good to those who hate or persecute us. And again has not our own Irish Nation ever been distinguished by its hospitality to the stranger and for its sympathy with the oppressed. Yes; truly Our Lord does bind us to love even our enemies, to do good to all, and our Nation stands pre-eminent by its hospitality and by the céad míle fáilte that is ever on its lips. But the law of charity never interfered with or lessened a law of nature – the law of self-preservation. Individual self-sacrifice is permitted and even necessary at times. The common good and welfare of a community can never be sacrificed, but must be guarded and defended, and when a common danger is pointed out all are bound to do their utmost to avert it and preserve themselves. It would be madness for a man to nourish in his own breast a viper that might at any moment slay its benefactor with its poisonous bite. So, too, is it madness for a people to allow an evil to grow in their midst that will eventually cause them ruin. Now, to what danger then did he allude to-night – what evil did he wish to direct their attention? It was that they were allowing themselves to become the slaves of Jew usurers. They knew who these were. The Jews were once the chosen people of God. God’s mercy and favours towards them were boundless. They were the people of whom was born the Messiah, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Master. But they rejected Jesus – they crucified Him – they called down the curse of His precious blood upon their own heads – “His blood be upon us and our children”, they cried and that curse came upon them. They were scattered over the earth after the siege of Jerusalem, AD 70; and they bore away with them an unquenchable hatred of the name of Jesus Christ and His followers. They persecuted the Christians from the beginning. They slew St Stephen, the First Martyr, and St James the Apostle, and ever since as often as opportunity offered they did not hesitate to shed Christian blood; and that even in the meanest and most cruel manner, as in the case of the holy martyr, St Simeone, who though a mere child they took and crucified out of hatred and derision towards Our Lord Jesus Christ. Nowadays they dare not kidnap and slay Christian children, but they will not hesitate to expose them to a longer and even more cruel martyrdom by taking the clothes off their back and the bit out of their mouths.

‘Twenty years ago and less Jews were known only by name and evil repute in Limerick.² They were sucking the blood of other nations, but those nations rose up and turned them out. And they came to our land to fasten themselves on us like leeches and to draw our blood when they had been forced away from other countries. They have, indeed, fastened themselves upon us; and now the question is whether or not we will allow them to fasten themselves still more upon us, until we and our children are the helpless victims of rapacity. The Jews came to Limerick apparently the most miserable tribe imaginable, with want on their faces, but now they had enriched themselves and could boast of very considerable house property in the city. Their rags have been exchanged for silk. They have wormed themselves into every form of business. They are in the furniture trade,³ the mineral water trade, the milk trade, the drapery trade, and in fact into business of every description, and traded even under Irish names.⁴ Just a few minutes ago I was handed a copy of the Chronicle with an account of a Jewish wedding. Listen to what it says – “At the Synagogue, inside and out, were large crowds, the difference between them being that whereas those outside (most of them) wore poverty’s motley, those inside were clad in fine broadcloth in silks and satin, goodly to look upon. From the outside to the door of the Synagogue itself: choice decorations were displayed, and the feet of the maiden trod as dainty a carpet as ever was laid down in the most ‘fashionable’ edifice in the country”.⁵ Mark the words –“those outside (most of them) wore poverty’s motley”. This certainly tells its own tale. How do the Jews manage to make money? Some of you may know their methods better than I do, but still it is my duty to expose their methods. They go about as pedlars from door to door, pretending to offer articles at very cheap prices, but in reality charging several times the value more than they were bought in the shops. The Jew is most persevering and barefaced in his statement as to the value of his goods. He does not mind to whom he offers his wares. A few weeks ago I was standing with three other priests at the door of a priest’s house, when a Jew had the boldness to walk up to us, and had the great kindness to offer to furnish us with the latest modern songs. That will show you how they push their trade. They force themselves and their goods upon the people, and the people are blind as to their tricks. Then they had the weekly payment system. They offer an article several times its value, and they are content to have it paid off by small instalments every week. The result is the article is paid for again and again; and people when they are caught and trapped grow tired of paying such unjust demands, refuse to pay, and most commonly are unable to pay, and then comes the inevitable summons and the bailiffs. When the summons is for less than £1 16s 8d it must go before the Mayor’s Court of Conscience; if for a larger sum it goes before another court.⁶ Then a decree is given, and the Mayor’s sergeants are forced to become collectors of money for the Jews, and the bailiffs are put in, and the little property seized and sold by the rapacious Jews. The victims of the Jews are mostly the women of a house. The Jew has got a sweet tongue when he wishes – he passes off his miserable goods upon her. She has to spare and stint to get the money to pay off the Jew without her husband knowing it, and then follow misery, sorrow and deceit. The wife is afraid lest her husband should find out that she has been dealing with the Jews. The Jew makes his appearance while the husband is in the house. The shilling is slipped into his hand – he goes away, the shilling is not marked down – no credit is given for it and this unregistered payment is made again a law suit. The wife, too, will beg the Jew not to come to her house – she does not want him to be seen coming, and then stealthy visits must be paid at night, in the darkness, lest the dealings might be found out. Stand at a prominent Jew’s house at night, and you will be surprised to see the number and the class of people who are going in and out, under cover of shawls, to pay the Jew his usury. Servant girls, too, are the common dupes of the designing Jew – cheap, gaudy jewellery, showy dresses, are passed off on her, and thus her scanty earnings are swallowed up by the Hebrew. Nor does the Jew care what exposure he makes to carry on this business – he is contented to carry on his business in the dark if necessary, but after that comes the court day.

‘Visit the Mayor’s Court on a Thursday – you may not see it now for some time, for the Jews may hold their hands – but if you visited it during the past two years you would think it was a special court for the whole benefit of the Jews. I have here in my possession an authentic document concerning a list of the summonses, with the amounts sued for, week after week. (Here, Father Creagh read the paper giving the weekly returns of the Court.) In 1902 some 337 summonses were issued for £303 1s 1d; in 1903, 228 summonses for £172 11s 4d. Surely this reveals a terrible state of things. If so many people had to be sued for money week after week, and for sums under £1 16s 8d, how many people must, we conclude, [be] constantly dealing with them. And these figures do not deal with the processes in the other courts. The Jews do not confine themselves to the city. They have made Limerick their headquarters from which they can spread their rapacious nets over the country all round. When they came here first they had to carry their packs upon their shoulders. Now they can afford to have horses and traps to carry their goods, and they can go long distances by train, and succeed in making the farmers their dupes as well as those living in the towns. To make their traffic easier they will barter in kind instead of in money. They will take a hen, or a goose, or a turkey, eggs or butter, and people will only receive half the market value of their poultry and dairy produce. Again if the Jews bought their goods in the city they might be of some benefit. But do they deal with local traders? They do to a certain extent, but their prefer to get their goods from other Jews across the Channel, and week by week tons of goods of every description are landed in Limerick from Jews outside the country, and thus the Jews cripple local trade and industry. For instance the furniture made in London deprives the local tradesmen of their work and the weekly wage to support their family. The Jews lend money in time of need, but at what rate of interest. Let me enter into a few figures. If you want five pounds you get not the five pounds, but £4 1s 3d, or 18s 9d less, which means seventy-five per cent at the end of the year. In the Pery Jubilee offices you are only charged fourpence in the pound.⁷ In the banks the charge is five per cent so you only pay £4 5s at the end of the year, whereas you have to pay something like double the amount borrowed from the Jews. Is not this robbery, and are we to be made fools of in this country forever?

‘Are the Jews a help to religion? I do not hesitate to say that there are no greater enemies of the Catholic Church than the Jews. Yet you will see the Jew carrying through town and country pictures of our Divine Lord, crucifixes, statues, and pictures of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This very day a man told me that not long ago he saw a Jew selling pictures of Our Lord, and as he walked along, when he thought no one heard him, he was blaspheming the Holy Name of Jesus. If you want an example look to France. What is going on at present in that land? The little children are being deprived of their education. No Nun, Monk, or Priest can teach in a school. The little ones are forced to go where God’s name is never mentioned – to go to Godless schools. The Jews are in league with the Freemasons in France, and have succeeded in turning out of that country all the nuns and religious orders. The Redemptorist Fathers to the number of two hundred had been turned out of France, and that is what the Jews would do in our own country if they are allowed to get into power. To say nothing of charges of immorality brought against the Jews by distributing to innocent country people indecent pictures, impure books, and aiding corruption of morals in other ways, for these things are hard to be proved, for the guilty one must carry on his unlawful practice in a manner that cannot be detected lest he might be punished by the law’. In conclusion, [Creagh] advised them to have no dealings in the manner he had described, with the Jews. If they had any transactions with them they should get out of them as soon as possible, and then afterwards keep far away from them.