Palatines in Limerick.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 36, 4 September 1902, Page 6

Palatines in Limerick.

A writer in the New York Sun declares it to be a well-known historical fact that about the time when the great tide of Palatine (German) emigration get in toward the colony of New York, and more especially to Pennslyvania, about 4000 of this people were ■ent over to Ireland upon the request of the then LieutenantGovernor, and were settled mainly in the County Limerick. Theu were of the same people who so largely populated Pennsylvania, the descendants of whqm still speak a German dialect, oommonly called Pennsylvania Dutch' ; many of the same people settled in the valley of the Mohawk, in the county of Schoharie, and along the Hudson in the State of New York. The Sun* correspondent further sayß that many descendant! of this people are still to be found in the County Limeriok, preserProtest ntb G f r ? an namef1 ' habitß> CUBtomB > and ' in religion, their At the outskirts of Rathkeale is a hamlet called Oourt^Matrix, which is the centre of them in that locality. Here the writer met * number of them. Mr Samuel Shier, a very intelligent farmer, •eems to be a sort of ' king bee ' among them. • I met his som and daughters, the correspondent writes, ' all educated and well informed. Other German names one meets here are such as Medlar, Muller, Bovenger, Becker, Switzer, Mueller, Reinhart, Heck, and many others. The number of families in thiß neighborhood it about 200, and in the County of Limerick the number of Palatin« families is estimated at about 2000. They centre about Adare, Ballingarry, Arbela, and Court Matrix, the latter being the parent colony. Of course, many of these people emigrated to America during the century just passed, and others will, no doubt, follow, at America is the goal to which every inhabitant of Ireland looka forward. ' Until about a generation and a half ago these Palatines npoka the Pfakich dialect, which is still spoken in Pennslyvania by a million of people. Mr Shier informed me that his father, who died some 20 year B ago at the age of 80 years, was still conversant with the dialect of his father, and the generations before that spok* tha dialect pretty generally, but at this day it has died out.'