A valuable archive of land and estate maps, wills, leases and tenancies dating back four centuries has been uncovered in the attic of a house in Limerick.
It provides valuable information not seen before about life in Limerick and Clare dating back to the 1700s and its worth as an extensive resource about the history of the city was discovered completely by accident.
Dr Paul O'Brien, who is a historian and lecturer at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, conducts a series of historical walks in Limerick along with his friend of many years Randel Hodkinson, whose family are long established ecclesiastical decorators in the city and who know about the history of many of the houses in Limerick.
During the course of these walks they met Brendan Dennehy, who lives on the northside of Limerick who explained that he had a huge collection of old boxes of documents which he had saved from a skip in the city 30 years ago and had minded carefully over those years.
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They were the contents of an old land agent who did business in the greater Munster area and whose firm had been in business from 1850.
But a closer examination showed just what a treasure they were.
Old metal boxes belonging to some of the large landlord families in Limerick and Clare - the Verekers, Arthurs, Westrops, Newsoms O'Briens, and Mac Donnells and containing land leases, maps, letters, and lists of tenants dating back four centuries.
Paul O'Brien said the find is invaluable.
"It contains documents some dating back as far as 1670, and outlines the real lives and everyday business of the landlords, the merchants, and the tenants of those times.
"The list of tenants is of particular interest, because they were not listed by name in our history. Now we can see their names, their rents, and sometimes the eviction notices, as these were often the silent people in our historical records."
Mr O'Brien said that for a historian, it is a once in a generational find given the sheer scale of it, which will be a major historical resource for them and for future students.
"We have examined only some of the documents and it will take years to search, read and catalogue it and we hope to eventually digitise it so that it is widely available.
"The national library is now interested in helping us examine and categorise it, but our plan is to keep it in Limerick," he added.
His colleague Dr Helene Bradley, a Historical Geographer at MIC, said she is particularly excited about all the maps of landlord estates dating back to the 18th and 19th Centuries, well before they were documented by the ordnance survey office.
"These documents can fill in so many gaps in our history and will now be primary sources for our research," she said.
Many of the documents relate to St Mary's Cathedral in the city, which itself dates back to the 11th Century, and which could well fill in some of the gaps in their own history.
Niall Sloane, who is Dean of St Mary's, said many of the landed families listed had connections with the cathedral, but this find is beyond anything they could have imagined.
One of the documents is the will of benefactor Alice Craven dating back to 1726, who left all her worldly goods and funds to providing alms houses for widows and poor children.
"I am still a Trustee of that charity and we were missing documents in relation to it and this may fill in the gaps in that jigsaw. In fact that trust gave money to widows on Christmas Eve, which is still carried on to this day by the Trust," Dean Sloane said.
Brendan Dennehy said he and his family are delighted the documents he saved for so long have found their way into the hands of historians who will treasure and pass on their worth to future generations.
