Communities take root · Ireland · 1660s to 1900
Small congregations grow through migration, family networks and everyday institutions.
Explore IrelandPublished by WTJPublication updated
1660s to 1900
Communities take root · Making a Jewish home in Ireland
Small congregations grow through migration, family networks and everyday institutions.
- Irish Jewish Museum · Jewish settlement, congregations and migration in Ireland
- Irish Jewish Museum · Communities across the island and the growth of Jewish Dublin
- Limerick City Library, Ask About Ireland · The Limerick boycott: incitement, violence and opposition
- Irish Jewish Museum · Restricted refuge, rescue efforts and Irish connections to the Holocaust
A prayer room in Dublin
In the 1660s, the Pereira family established a Jewish prayer hall in Dublin's Crane Lane. Later congregations moved between different buildings as their numbers changed. This was a small community with connections beyond Ireland, creating places for worship and mutual support within a society shaped by Christian institutions and British rule.
New arrivals from eastern Europe
From the late nineteenth century, Jews escaping persecution in the Russian Empire arrived in larger numbers, many from present-day Lithuania. Families settled around Dublin's South Circular Road and in other Irish towns. Migration often involved several moves through Britain and Ireland before people found a lasting home.
More than a place on a map
Synagogues, kosher shops and family networks made daily Jewish life possible around Clanbrassil Street, later known as Little Jerusalem. Communities also developed in Cork, Limerick, Belfast and elsewhere. These were connected local communities with different histories. Belfast's later history belongs to Northern Ireland, rather than the independent Irish state.