The Limerick Blogger - latest Limerick news and Limerick events

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A story which appeared in the Sunday Independent two weeks ago has resulted in an unusual exchange this week, which can be seen in the letters section of the Limerick Leader this weekend.

It’s an old story really; Dublin person writes dubious story about Limerick, Limerick people react to it, Dublin person accuses Limerick person of not acknowledging crime problem in Limerick.

Anyway, back to the story.

Jim Cusack wrote this story in the Sunday Independent claiming that Gardai thwarted an attempt by a local criminal from causing carnage at the funeral of James Cronin by arresting an armed man at the gates of the cemetery.

Two days later, the Limerick Chronicle carried a story featuring one of the highest ranking Gardai in Limerick, Superintendent Willie Keane, who described the story as “wild speculation,” and declared that no such incident took place on that day at the cemetery.

The response to the story from the Sunday Independent journalist who wrote the offending story can be found in the Letters page of the leader. Proper order to publish the letter, It must be the first time someone from the independent has tried to justify the way they write about Limerick, so we can put the lousy effort down to lack of experience.

In his letter Mr Cusack accused the Leader of attacking other journalists and claimed that there was a level of denial in the paper’’s reporting in relation to coverage of the situation in Limerick.

But Mr. Cusack missed the bit that said that it was the Superintendant who called his story “wild speculation,” not the Limerick Leader.

Willie Keane criticised the independent story on tuesday. I criticised it on Sunday, as well as a couple of other stories in the same paper relating to Limerick. of course, I would be more likely to tell Mr. Cusack to feast on the rear end of my genitals had he approached me.

But Alan English of the Limerick leader is more of a gentleman, and his reply is more polite than mine would be.

In response, he told Mr. Cusack that the Leader did not have a “stance” on media reporting events in Limerick, he also pointed out that the Leader did not solicit comments from the highest ranking Garda in Limerick. He also pointed out that the chairperson of the Limerick co-ordination office made contact with the Leader to criticise the Sunday Independent article in question.

Some comments from readers of the Limerick Blogger, random members of the public, also appeared in the online version of the Limerick Chronicle article.

In relation to the claim that a man was prevented from entering the cemetary at James Cronin’s funeral with an automatic weapon, Mr. Cusack failed in his response to the Leader to address the difference between his version of events and the version of Willie Keane. One of the two is innaccurate. It would help Mr. Cusack’s case if he either backed up his story with more solid evidence or stood up and said “OK, my source was dodgy, I fucked up, sorry.”

(copyright Limerick Blogger 2008)
(Copyright Independent Newspapers 2011)

Ulster beat a second string Munster side 19 -9 in the Magners League to finish off the slim hope that Munster had of catching up with Leinster. For the Heineken cup final the red army will have to change to their second strip and turn into the blue army as Toulouse who also wear red won the coin toss for choice of jersey for the final. Munster will use the North dressing room at the Millenium stadium, the same one that they had in 2006.
Cork city beat Limerick 37 by a score of 3 to nil last night in the league cup in front of a lowly crowd of 292 people. Most people were probably watching Utd V Barca. Shelbourne are up next at Jackman Park in the league on Friday night, kick off 7.45pm.

Preparations are well under way for the ancient tradition of disposing of unwanted household items and furnishings and setting fire to them.

The above shot is of a bonfire in the making in the green area near the People’s Park taken yesterday. Stacks of kindling like this are being built around the city for “bonfire night.”

If you wish to send images of your local bonfire you can do so to editors@limerickblogger.org

And before anyone asks, the blue van was just a piece of traffic which happened to be travelling on Careys Road at the instant the image was taken, and has no relation to the bonfire.

Spotted this yesterday, Im very open about the fact that I do not like this statue, being an artist I just don’t see how a Sculptor could pick this particular role of Harris as an ideal for his portrayal in statue form. I really do think there are other more appropriate roles and characters he has played that would have been more at home in the surrounds of a Limerick audience.
Apparently im not the only one who finds the statue more amusing than inspiring of our native acting hero.
Personally I think this makes Harris look like Burger King than anything else, and I just have to say hats off to the dude I saw put this ciggy in his mouth :)

It was confirmed today that Dell in Ireland are cutting their workforce by 250. The redundancies are mandatory and will consist of between 180-200 being lost at Cherrywood in Dublin with the remainder at the plant in Raheen. The manufacturing plant will not be affected but the losses are believed to be in the areas of finance, IT and technical support