We study the meet irreducible ideals (ideals I so that I = J ∩ K implies I = J or I = K) in certain direct limit algebras. The direct limit algebras will generally be strongly maximal triangular subalgebras of AF C * -algebras, or briefly, strongly maximal TAF algebras. Of course, all ideals are closed and two-sided.These ideals have a description in terms of the coordinates, or spectrum, that is a natural extension of one description of meet irreducible ideals in the upper triangular matrices. Additional information is available if the limit algebra is an analytic subalgebra of its C * -envelope or if the analytic algebra is trivially analytic with an injective 0-cocycle. In the latter case, we obtain a complete description of the meet irreducible ideals, modeled on the description in the algebra of upper triangular matrices. This applies, in particular, to all full nest algebras.One reason for interest in the meet irreducible ideals of a strongly maximal TAF algebra is that each meet irreducible ideal is the kernel of a nest representation of the algebra (Theorem 2.4). A nest representation of an operator algebra A is a norm continuous representation of A acting on a Hilbert space with the property that the lattice of closed invariant subspaces for the representation is totally ordered. These representations were introduced in [L1] as analogues for a general operator algebra of the irreducible representations of a C * -algebra. The meet irreducible ideals seem analogous to the primitive ideals in a C * -algebra. Indeed, in a C * -algebra, the meet irreducible ideals are precisely the primitive ideals [L3, Theorem 2.1]. This analogy can be extended by noting that the meet irreducible ideals form a topological space under the hull-kernel topology and every ideal is the intersection of the meet * Partially supported by an NSF grant. † Partially supported by an NSERC grant.