Limerick was a norse kingdom carved out of Thomond, when Brian Boru became king of Thomond he kept the title King of Limerick for some reason.
By the time the city proper was founded as we know it, the idea of Limerick was "land between the Shannon in Thomond".
This is why it goes up to Castleconnell and down to Patrickswell, and why traditionally it includes Meelick and runs down to Ballycannon.
Even the people in that bit of Clare don't really consider themselves Claremen the way people do in Kilkishen or Sixmilebridge, they know they're in clare and they know they're not in county Limerick, but they're some weird hybrid.
The Catholic diocese of Limerick still covers Cratloe as the diocese (afaik) pre-dates the boundary change in 1840 (ie the Bishop of Limerick is nominally (?) the head of the primary school in Cratloe). I think (but I'm not sure) it might extend to Sixmilebridge, which afaik, is where the North Liberties of Limerick extended to.
Limerick Diocese goes to the boundary of sixmilebridge and down past meelick to ballycannon, basically find a map of the river Shannon and everything within its boundaries in clare was once Limerick.
While we're undoing the wrongs of Queen Victoria, we should go back to calling the Shannon Estuary by its old (Gaelic?) name of Lough Limerick (Loch Luimnigh).
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u/WoahGoHandy 5d ago
keep your hands off our county!
in all seriousness, as far as Cratloe should probably be Limerick. it's basically all rich Limerick people anyway.
i'm convinced if hurling didn't exist, nobody would care, but it does and not a hope the limerick border will extend into Clare now