Do limericks originate from Ireland

...asked Lomfats

A. No-one is really sure, but the origins can be traced back to the fourteenth century. Limericks were originally associated with children's nursery rhymes, but were then developed into drinking songs.

Q. So why are they called limericks then

A. A seventeenth century tavern-drinking song exhorted people to come down from Limerick and many tavern songs were based on what we now know as the limerick form. This could be where the name came from to describe this particular type of song based on a low-brow poetic form.

Q. Do limericks have any literary pedigree at all

A. Yes. They appear in Shakespeare's King Lear and Othello, and really came to be popular with the publication of Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense in the mid-nineteenth century. In literary terms limericks can be described as five line stanzas in spondaic hexameter.

Q. Do limericks have to be rude

A. Because limericks are poetry for all and used for spontaneous entertainment they have always had a bawdy, indecent content purely to make the most number of people laugh.

Q. Does the form have any variations

A. No. The rhyming scheme aabba is what absolutely characterises a limerick and it wouldn't be a limerick without it.

Q. Why are they still so popular

A. Because anybody can make up a limerick, which has to be the simplest and most accessible of all poetry for the masses. It is a very forgiving art form, but cleverly done it can be brilliant and incisive social commentary. After Lear's Book of Nonsense was published, the then highly respected Punch magazine ran weekly limerick competitions for years.

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by Nicola Shepherd