There are numerous useful research aids when examining the history of Limerick. Here are a select few of these resources.
Research Aids - People
- Estate Maps of County Limerick - A pdf format database of all known maps and many estate rentals for the county and city of Limerick. All tenants' names have been transcribed, making it a valuable resource for genealogical research. It is an ongoing project which will be added to.
- Who was who in Medieval Limerick - A fully referenced index to people in medieval Limerick. It is believed to contain well over 95% of people whose names were recorded through the medieval period. It is hoped that the database will encourage further research on medieval Limerick.
- Who was who in early modern Limerick is a fully referenced index to people in 16th and 17th century Limerick. It is the continuation of the medieval Who was Who. It is an ongoing work and will expand over time.
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People Licensed to Keep Arms in Limerick 1832-36 - The following list is abstracted from “Names etc of People in Ireland to whom Magistrates have granted Licences to keep Arms.” It is a listing of arms registered after1st August 1832 and the report was returned February 1836 to the House of Commons. The names of magistrates and their residences is omitted from the list. The full work was digitised by Southampton University and is available on archive.org. Research was undertaken by B.J. Hodkinson
The East India Company and Limerick
In the 18th and 19th centuries the East India Company employed thousands of Limerick men in its armies in India. India was divided into three presidencies, Bombay, Madras and Bengal, each of which had its own army. The following lists are compiled from files in the India Office Records of the British Library. The soldier service records were made available to the compiler at the Church of the Latter Day Saints’ Family History Centre in Dooradoyle.
- Limerick Recruits to East India Company to 1832
- Bombay soldiers 1831-60
- Madras soldiers 1831-60
- Bengal Soldiers 1831-1860
- Supplementary Information
- Discharged Soldiers 1820-61
- Bengal officers to 1834.
- Ghuznee prize list
- The Black Book of Limerick (76 Kb), published by James MacCaffrey in 1907 is a collection of medieval Latin documents relating to St Mary's Cathedral, Limerick. The original index of the book was extremely poor. This is a new index of people mentioned in the text. For an annotated index of place names click on Black Book places (134 Kb)
- Civil Survey of 1654 lists all people in the survey. No attempt has been made to regularise spellings of people and places. If searching try known variants of the names.
- The Limerick Corporation Index of 1843 (273 Kb) is a manuscript summary of Corporation leases compiled by the City’s Law Agent, Robert Potter in 1843, and contains leases from the 17th century onwards. There is an index of names at the end of the document. This searchable file was published in the North Munster Antiquarian Journal, Volume 39, 1998-99.
- Annates (78 Kb) is a record, in Latin, of appointments to church benefices in the Limerick diocese from 1421-1519. This searchable download is a simple index of the places named in the text. For the full Latin text see:- Obligationes pro Annatis Diocesis Limiricensis, 1421-1519 in, Archivium Hibernicum (Irish Historical Records) Vol. 10, 1943 pp104-62. English translations of most of the Annates can be found spread out within Begley’s, Diocese of Limerick, Ancient and Medieval, 1906, Dublin.
- Constables is a fully referenced list of the constables of King John's Castle. While researching an article on Brevet Major William Butts RA, court-martialled in Limerick in 1829, the acting curator accumulated some information about his family which may be of use to family history researchers.
- Brevet Major William Butts The information in this file was uncovered while researching the background of Brevet Major William Butts of the Royal Artillery who was court-martialled in Limerick in 1829 and dismissed the service.
Research Aids - Places
- Townland Index of Co. Limerick is an alphabetical listing of the townlands of Co. Limerick, together with their civil parish and barony, cross referenced to Ordnance Survey sheet and the Limerick placename book Logainmneacha na hEireann Imleabhar 1 Contae Luimnigh, by Art O Maolfabhail.
- Parishes is an alphabetical index of the civil parishes of County Limerick, together with the baronies in which they lie.
- Placenames of the Desmond Survey Placenames of the Desmond Survey is a comprehensive index of all Limerick placenames in the 1580s Desmond Survey. The index uses the numbering in the online version of the Survey produced by University College Cork, which is available at www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E580000-001/ . The personal names in the Survey are incorporated into the Who was who of early modern Limerick.
- Placenames of the Down Survey is a list of the placenames shown on the parish and barony maps of the Down Survey of 1655-58
- Placenames of County Limerick - A listing of minor placenames gleaned from maps, deeds etc in the museum's collection and from the Limerick City Archives. It will be an ongoing work.
Historic Directories
In 2022, the Limerick Museum undertook a re-digitisation project which allowed us to re-instate files and resources which had been compiled in the 1980s and 1990s. These files were in need of conversion and re-configuring. Thanks to our new modern digitisation technology, we have rescued thousands of pages of files which will be of use in researching the social and economic history of Limerick. The following files are just the start of the new resources, starting with the trade directory:
Limerick Businesses and Trades, up to mid 2000s
Interactive Maps