Limericks

Where is Limerick

• Limerick is a city and the county seat of County Limerick in the province of Munster, in the midwest of the Republic of Ireland. The city lies on the River Shannon, with three main crossing points near the city centre and has a 2006 population of 91,000 inhabitants within its urban area. (en.wikikpedia.org)
• The Limerick County Council Website provides all necessary information about Limerick vom A to Z - but not about Limericks

What is a limerick

The Lure of the Limerick

"No-one knows for certain how the name of an Irish Mid-Western city came to be associated with the short, irreverent, often bawdy verses of the limerick. Some people believe that it came from the school of poets who lived in Croom, Co. Limerick in the nineteenth century; their specialisation was short satiric verses. The genre became a fixture in Victorian times, due in no small part to the author of nonsense verse, Edward Lear.[...]"

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For more information and instruction see:

• 'The Limerick Special Interest Group :"...which is open to everyone. Membership in this club is $24 per year [Oct-Sep]. Contributions of limericks (naughty or nice), book reviews, and limerick related articles are encouraged. Doctor Limerick, the editor of The Pentatette (the monthly newsletter of the SIG) is always eager to give advice to people who are infinitely happier than he, to answer questions, and to doctor sick limericks."
• Handbook of Terms for Discussing Poetry provided by the Department of English, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia U.S.

LIMERICKS

There once was a man in Calcutta,

Who spoke with a terrible stutter.

At breakfast he said:

'Give me b-b-b-bread,

And b-b-b-b-b-b-butter.'

There was an old man from Peru,

Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.

He woke in a fright

In the middle of the night

And found it was perfectly true.

There once was a young man called Paul,

Who went to a fancy-dress ball.

He thought he would risk it

And go as a biscuit,

But a dog ate him up in the hall.

There was a young man of Bengal,

Who went to a fancy-dress ball.

He went, just for fun,

dressed up as a bun,

and a dog ate him up in the hall.

There was a young lady of Riga,

Who smiled when she rode on a tiger.

They came back from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of the tiger.

There was an old man from Dunoon,

Who always ate soup with a spoon,

For he said:`As I eat

Neither fish, fowl not meat,

I should finish my dinner too soon.

There was a young man of Japan,

Who wrote verses that never would scan.

When asked why this was,

He said:"It's because

I always try to get as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can."