The
Annals of Inisfallen
record that in 1079,
“Coicer
Iudaide do thichtain dar muir & aisceda leo de Tair-
rdelbach, & a n-dichor doridisi dar muir.”
(Five Jews
came over sea with gifts to Tairrdelbach, and they were
sent back over sea.) This brief entry can be debated.
Its brevity may allude to an inhospitable reception
given the Jews, and the harsh reaction by Munster’s
king of Thomond, Tairrdelbach Ua Briain, which led
to the hasty departure of the five visitors. Louis Hyman
suggests that they “pleaded to secure for their co-
religionists the right of entry.” The Jews may have
come from England or Normandy. The inclusion of
“over sea” can indicate that the sea voyage was brief,
involving their passage over only one body of water.
Stanley Siev opts for Rouen. England lacked a large
Jewish presence in the period following the Norman
Conquest; Rouen possessed a Jewish merchant class
engaged in Northern trade. Limerick, a Thomond
stronghold, presented a likely point of arrival and
contact between the upriver Norman town and the
Shannon. As the five were not taken captive, killed, or
despoiled of their goods, Siev argues that the Irish king
accepted their gifts and recognized the influence of the
visiting trade representatives.
The same
Annals
for 1080 note that “Ua Cinn
Fhaelad, king of the Déisi, went to Jerusalem.” This
may bolster a favorable reception given the earlier
delegation, as this king embarked as a pilgrim to the
Holy Land, not long before the First Crusade. How-
ever, Irish pilgrimages predate considerably the Jewish
visit of 1079.
Regardless of the degree of hospitality given these
pioneers, Jews did establish an Irish presence at a
later date. On July 28, 1232, Henry III granted to
Peter des Rivall (or Rivaux) not only control of the
Irish Royal Exchequer but “Custody of the king’s
Judaism in Ireland,” adding the provision that “all
Jews in Ireland shall be intentive and respondent to
Peter in all things touching the king.” Letters to the
Irish Jews repeated this appointment. Calendar
entries between 1171 and 1225 offer scattered men-
tions of Jews but lack their residences, possibly indi-
cating an English habitation.
As early as 1169 Josce, a Jewish lender from
Gloucester, had advanced funds to two Anglo-Norman
mercenaries who landed in Ireland to aid Diarmait
Mac Murchadha against Ruairí Ua Conchobair; this
transaction—which was punished—occurred well ahead
of Strongbow’s Anglo-Norman invasion. Monetary deals
by Jews were hindered in Ireland as well. Prohibition
of land transfers (
in Judaismo ponere
)
to the Jews in
Dublin occurs in its White Book for 1241. Deportation
to Ireland was threatened for any Jew that opposed the
royal levies raised by Henry III for his war against the
Welsh in 1244. Aaron, Benjamin’s son, was born in
Colchester but was recorded in the Exchequer Rolls
as “
Aaron de Hibernia, Judaeus
.” Jailed at Bristol Castle,
he was tried in 1283 for selling plate made out of
parings from royal coinage.
The last citation in the Calendar of Documents
occurs for Jews in Ireland at Easter 1286. The 1290
royal banishment from the realm of all Jews seems to
have applied to those in Ireland. Surnames of “Jew”
and “Abraham” do appear over the next two centuries,
but these are not of Jewish origin.
After later royal expulsions of Jews, from Spain and
Portugal, Ireland did offer refuge at the end of the
medieval era at least temporarily, perhaps for those in
transit to Jewish communities in London or in Bristol,
where a Marrano or crypto-Jewish colony already
existed. About 1492, Petrus Fernandes, a physician,
was born. He practiced throughout the Continent, but
died by 1540. That year, Thomas Fernandes of Viana
in Portugal, facing accusations of being “New Christian,”
testified that he was the son of the late Master
Fernandes, born in Ireland.
J
OHN
L. M
URPHYReferences and Further Reading
Buckley, Anthony D. “Uses of History Among Ulster Protes-
tants.” In
The Poet’s Place. Ulster literature and society.
Essays in honour of John Hewitt, 1907–1987
,
edited by
Gerald Dawe and John Wilson Foster, 259–71. Belfast: Insti-
tute of Irish Studies, 1991.
Hyman, Louis.
The Jews of Ireland from Earliest Times to the
Year 1910. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972.
CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts, s.v. “
Annals of Inis-
fallen
,” http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online.
Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. “Cessair.” “Mil.” “Tara.”
Myth, Legend, and
Romance. An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition.
New
York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991.
Siev, Stanley.
The Celts and the Hebrews
. Dublin: The Irish
Jewish Museum, and Shannon: The Centre for International
Co-Operation, 1993.
See also
Anglo-Norman Invasion; Annals
and Chronicles; Biblical and Church Fathers
Scholarship; Invasion Myth; Pilgrims
and Pilgrimage; Racial and Cultural
Conflict; Records, Administrative; Ua Briain,
Tairrdelbach; Trade
JOHN (1167–1216), KING OF ENGLAND
John was the fourth son of Henry II, was lord of Ireland
(from 1177), earl of Mortain (from 1189), and king of
England (1199–1216). John’s early years coincided
with the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, his
father’s establishment of the Lordship, the 1175 treaty
of Windsor with Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, and the col-
lapse of that settlement following the death in 1176 of
the most powerful invading baron, Strongbow, thenJEWS IN IRELAND