This talk is about at the trajectory and important presence of Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Ireland between the 16th and 18th centuries. They self-identified as “people of the nation” (in Portuguese, gente da nação, an abbreviation for “people of the Portuguese Nation” or “people of the Hebrew nation”). They established a small Jewish community that included Ireland’s first Jewish mayors, and they founded the first known Jewish cemeteries and houses of prayer in Ireland.
Yet there is very little published about this community, and the only scholarship available is outdated and the focus of recent scholarship has centered mostly on the post-1880s period of Ashkenazi immigration to Ireland. I want to fill that gap. The mobility and cultural dynamics of “people of the nation” reflect the geographical extent of their global presence and prominence at that time. They left behind cultural imprints upon historical sites in Ireland and reflect an important yet neglected component of Irish heritage.
Alan P. Marcus. Ph.D. is a historical geographer, and a professor at the department of geography and environmental planning at Towson University, Maryland, USA. He is author of Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822. A New Geography of the Atlantic World (University of New Mexico Press, 2024). Email: Alan P. Marcus,/p>