The Archival History of the Irish Jewish Community (GSI Presentation No. 3)

‫די ארכיוו היסטאריע פון דער אירישער יידישער קהילה‬

Stair Chartlainne Phobal Giúdach na hÉireann

The Archival History of the Irish Jewish Community

Presentation No. 3 (2021) www.familyhistory.ie

‘The Archival History of the Irish Jewish Community’ is the ‘magnum opus’ of Belfast born, Dublin raised and now, London resident, Stuart Rosenblatt, who painstakingly researched, located, copied and collated material on the Irish Jewry from all around Ireland for over twenty years.

Mr. Stuart Rosenblatt, PC, FGSI President Genealogical Society of Ireland

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Earliest Record of Jews in Ireland?

1079 – Visit to High King – “Limerick had trading connections with Rouen, the capital of the duchy of Normandy and the largest Jewish centre in western Europe; thence most probably arrived the delegation of Jewish merchants that visited [High King] Toirrdelbach Ua Briain in 1079.”

F. J. Byrne – ‘The trembling sob: Ireland in 1169’ (p.29) in ‘A New History of Ireland – Vol. II – Medieval Ireland 11691534’ edited by Art Cosgrove (Oxford, 2008)

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1169/71 - Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland – Following the capture of Dublin and the other ports, Jewish merchants and capital expanded the exports from Ireland.

Kevin Down – ‘Colonial society and economy’ (p. 481) in ‘A New History of Ireland – Vol. II – Medieval Ireland 1169-1534’ edited

by Art Cosgrove (Oxford, 2008)

A concise history of the Irish Jewish community is available in ‘The Yidiot’s Guide to Irish Jewish Ancestry’ by Stuart Rosenblatt. (2011)



Main period of arrival in Ireland – late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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“In the wake of the Tsar’s anti-Semitic ‘May Laws’, the number of Jews in Ireland jumped from 472 (394 of them in what would become the Irish Free State) in 1881 to 3,769 (3,006) in 1901, and rose further to 5,038 (3,686) in 1926.

Modern Irish Jewish Community

Cormac Ó Gráda ‘Industry: Problems and Prospects’ (page 329) – ‘Ireland – A New Economic History 1780-1939’ (Oxford, 1994)

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Main areas of origin – Russian Empire – eastern Europe, Poland, Baltic States and Germany.

Census Year

Total Population

Number of Jews

% Increase / Decrease

1861

4,402,111

341

-

1871

4,053,187

230

-32.6%

1881

3,870,020

394

+71.3%

1891

3,468,694

1,506

+282.2%

1901

3,221,823

3,006

+99.6%

1911

3,139,688

3,805

+26.6%

1926

2,971,992

3,686

-3.6%

1936

2,968,420

3,749

+1.7%

1946

2,955,107

3,907

+4.2%

Jewish Population in Ireland (area that is now the Republic of Ireland)

‘Jews

in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, AntiSemitism and the Holocaust’ by Dermot Keogh. (Cork University Press, 1998) ISBN 1-85918-150-3 Price €29.00 (page 9) www.corkuniversitypress.com

Some specific areas of origin in Eastern Europe for the Irish Jewry 

Kovno Gubernia in Lithuania

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Akmijan (Akmian in Yiddish, currently Akmene).

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Zhager (today’s Zagare)

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Klikul (Klykoliai)

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Vexna or Svexna

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Papiljan

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Kurshjan (Kursenai)

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Shavli (Siaulia)

Dermot Keogh (1998) (pages 8 & 9)

Truly a “Magnum Opus” of Twenty-One Volumes containing 67,118 individual records of Births, Marriages, Burials, Census Returns, Occupations, Addresses and other genealogical information.

Twenty-one Volumes Twenty-one large leatherbound volumes covering all types of civil, religious, commercial and other records copied from the original sources held by Irish state and private institutions located throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. 

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No other country’s Jewish community has been so extensively researched, recorded and the information collated into one huge resource for the study of Jewish genealogy. 

This collection of twenty-one volumes is a national treasure for the Irish Jewry and their descendants throughout the world.

This unique resource can be accessed at the following locations:  An Daonchartlann – the Archive

& Research Centre of the Genealogical Society of Ireland 

National Archives of Ireland

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National Library of Ireland

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Irish Jewish Museum, Dublin

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Dublin City Archives & Library, Pearse Street, Dublin. 

Unfortunately, not yet in New York, London or at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem.

Further information on this unique resource

Contact: Stuart Rosenblatt, PC, FGSI Email:

srosenblatt@irishjewishroots.com

Phone:

+ 44 (0) 788 979 4757

Website: www.irishjewishroots.com

Published by The Varsity Press See: www.thevarsitypress.com

Presentation produced by the Genealogical Society of Ireland

Go raibh maith agaibh Thank You