Limerick City Research Articles

Cycles: using storytelling to co-design a positive future for menstrual health and wellbeing in public spaces

Despite the ubiquity of menstruation, the area is under-researched and stigmatized. The burden of ‘managing’ periods lies with the people who menstruate (PWM). Some etiquettes and cultures ask that periods disappear/are hidden from the public sphere, however despite this, PWM continue to experience symptoms within these public spaces (pain, nausea, discomfort etc.). This paper describes a design research study in two parts: Cycles is a design project that firstly uncovers what it means to menstruate in ‘public’ and secondly explores how we can collaboratively generate conceptual solutions to contribute towards a positive future for menstrual health and well-being. Through a series of participatory and inclusive design research methods, based on storytelling the diverse experiences of a group of PWM were gathered. Subsequent analysis of the data identified a number of shared and individual stories that were re-enacted in an urban context (using Limerick City as a test bed). This research served to highlight that whilst everyone’s story with their period is individual, there is a collective lack of infrastructural, product and social support for PWM. Cycles surfaced a requirement for inclusive and equitable solutions that support PWM at the point of need whilst also raising awareness and building understanding and sympathy.

Simulated GP clinic closure: effects on patient access in the Irish Mid-West.

Rural communities can experience more barriers to accessing health care than their urban counterparts, largely due to fewer healthcare staff and services, and geographical isolation. The purpose of this study is to examine the availability of GP practices in rural communities across the Mid-West of Ireland and the potential impact of practice closure on patient access. GP clinic locations were identified in Ireland's Mid-West, specifically counties Limerick and Clare. Administrative subdivisions of both counties, Small Areas (SAs), were identified and their XY geographic centre coordinates recorded. SAs were indexed into six levels of rurality according to Irish Central Statistics Office urban/rural classifications (1, cities; 2, satellite urban towns; 3, independent urban towns; 4, rural areas with high urban influence; 5, rural areas with moderate urban influence; 6, highly rural/remote areas). The direct linear distance from the centre of each SA to its respective closest GP clinic was calculated. Simulated closure of each GP clinic was assessed programmatically by removing practices from the overall dataset and calculating the new direct linear distance from each SA to the next closest GP clinic. The majority of the SAs in County Clare (63%) and County Limerick (66%) are classified as rural (rurality index ≥4), with the exception of Limerick City, where all SAs were defined as urban. Rural SAs have longer travel distances to GP clinics than their urban counterparts, and these distances are greater with increasing rurality of a population. Simulated closure of GP clinics revealed increasing travel distances to the next closest clinic with increasing level of rurality in a stepwise fashion (r2=0.31). Rural community dwellers across the Mid-West of Ireland face longer travel distances to GP clinics than their urban counterparts. Thus rural communities will be, on average, more adversely affected should their local GP clinic close. While these findings are unsurprising, our methodology calculates a discrete number that can be used to rank vulnerability of local communities. Rural areas are particularly vulnerable to GP clinic closure, and maintaining a solid foundation of primary care in these areas will require careful service and workforce planning.

Illicit drug use in Limerick City: A stakeholder and policy analysis using multiple streams model.

The changing drug situation in Ireland has led to the development of various drug policies. This paper aims to use Limerick City as a case study to examine approaches to policy development. The study is qualitative and uses a hybrid technique that combines document, content, and stakeholder analysis. Kingdon's multiple streams model underpins this study. In addition, guidelines for the systematic search for grey literature were adopted as the search strategy. Problem Stream: Illicit drug use and its related problems have changed. The increasing availability of drugs, increasing usage and changes in the types of drugs being used have led to increased drug-related crimes, adverse health outcomes and elevated demand for treatment services. Local drug policies and initiatives emerge by recognising drug-related problems in the region. Policy Stream: The current national drug strategy 2017-2025 which informs action plans in Limerick is the first to focus on a unified health approach. Some national policies have evolved to ensure that guidelines meet current service needs. However, these changes have occurred in some cases with no clear actions. Political Stream: Statutory, voluntary and community stakeholders provide drug addiction and drug addiction-related services, which have evolved rapidly since their first introduction. The Mid-West Regional Drug Task Force was identified as essential in coordinating stakeholders locally. One area for improvement is limited evidence of the voices of persons who take drugs included in service/policy development. This regional analysis also suggests that local implementation of policies concerning dual diagnosis and supervised injection facilities can be further expanded. Despite the challenges experienced by stakeholders in Limerick, a hands-on approach has been adopted in the creation of strategies to tackle the drug problem. The approaches to drug policy development have delivered continuous development of services. However, services remain underdeveloped in areas removed from the capital city of Dublin. Navigating the complex drug landscape reveals that inclusivity, adaptation, and ongoing research are critical components of successful and long-lasting drug policies.

The 19th European Conference on Applications of Surface and Interface Analysis

The 19th European Conference on Applications of Surface and Interface Analysis (ECASIA'22) was held at the University of Limerick in the Republic of Ireland from 29 May – 3 June 2022. For many this was the first face-to-face meeting since the end of the COVID 19 Pandemic and for this reason it is perhaps not surprising that numbers were somewhat lower than one would expect to see at an ECASIA Meeting. The Pandemic meant that it was not possible to run the conference in its traditional slot two years after the previous one in Dresden in 2019. However the organisers, Professor Tofail Syed and his team at the University of Limerick, ran a one-day virtual event on 18th June 2021 to ensure that ECASIA remained firmly fixed in people's minds. Bearing in mind the circumstances, the conference was well attended with well over 200 delegates. Together some 200 papers were presented including 16 plenary and keynote contributions and 130 oral presentations. The ECASIA Award was made for the fifth time, with Professor Jiro Matsuo following in the distinguished footsteps of Siegfried Hofmann (2013), Jim Castle (2015), David Castner (2017) and Aleksander Jablonski (2019). Jiro's Award Lecture was entitled “Collisions of Cluster Ions: Fundamental Phenomena and Applications” and gave a wide-ranging exposition of the development of massive gas cluster ions for use in SIMS and XPS depth profiling, along with a thorough overview of current and future applications. The traditional Wednesday afternoon excursion was to Bunratty Folk Park & Castle, which was followed in the evening by the conference dinner at the Strand Hotel in Limerick city centre. The latter featured traditional Irish music and much dancing! This Special Issue of the journal features but a small cross section of the papers presented at the Conference. These papers cover many of the topics that traditionally feature at ECASIA conferences and make them so deservedly popular. Topics that feature in this Special Issue include biomaterials, catalysis, corrosion, data analysis, depth profiling, electronics and polymers. As always it falls to us to thank the authors for responding in a timely manner to reviewers comments and, of course, to the professional manner in which all referees carried out their task so diligently. The referees are the unsung heroes of the publishing world and as our lives get busier and busier, it is gratifying that there is still such a dedicated band of individuals. So, the ECASIA Conference series moves towards its twentieth meeting. This will be held in Gothenburg Sweden during the week of 9 – 14 June 2024, with Professor Lars Nyborg as Conference Chair. More senior members of the ECASIA Community may remember the ECASIA'97 held in this city, a difficult act to follow but we know Lars and his team are up to it. See you in Gothenburg in June 2024!

The availability of general practice in Ireland's Mid-West Region: does the 'Inverse Care Law' still apply?

The 'Inverse Care Law' suggests the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the needs of the local population. Dr Julian Tudor Hart's observations related to lack of access to care for those in both socially deprived and geographically remote areas. In this study, we aim to examine if the 'Inverse Care Law' is still relevant to GP service provision in the Mid-West of Ireland. GP clinic locations in Limerick and Clare were identified using the Health Service Executive (HSE) Service Finder and geocoded. GeoHive.ie was used to determine Electoral District (ED) centroids across the Mid-West. The shortest linear distance to a GP clinic was calculated for each ED. PobalMaps.ie was used to determine population and social deprivation scores of each ED. In total, 122 GP practices were identified across 324 EDs. The average travel distance to a GP clinic in the Mid-West is 4.7 km. Limerick City EDs had the smallest patient population per GP clinic and were all found to be within 1.5 km of a GP clinic. Proximity to GP clinics did not correlate with deprivation. However, by removing GP clinics from the analyses, it was possible to determine how vulnerable different areas (rural vs urban, deprived vs affluent) are to potential changes in GP clinic availability in the future. People living in urban areas such a Limerick City have improved geographic accessibility to GP clinics compared with their rural counterparts. However, within urban areas assessed, GP clinics were rarely found in deprived areas. Therefore, remote and urban-deprived areas are far more vulnerable to negative proximity effects secondary to practice closures, suggesting the principles of the 'Inverse Care Law' may still be active in the Mid-West of Ireland.

Doing politics differently: the establishment of cross-party caucuses by women councillors in Irish local government

ABSTRACT This article examines the development of caucuses by women councillors in Irish local government in the wake of the 2017 launch of a caucus for women members of the Oireachtas. The multi-method research offers a rich, gendered assessment of the factors which enable and constrain the establishment and operations of caucuses for women councillors and it places a particular focus on the first local caucuses established in the country (Limerick City and County [2019] and Dublin City [2020]). Local government in Ireland provides a unique opportunity to support such an investigation as partisanship is less significant there than it is at the national level. The research illuminates the circumstances under which we can expect locally elected women of different parties and ideologies to come together in order to cooperate. Enabling circumstances include a high level of interest and gender consciousness among women councillors – with new women identified as key players – and the presence of a caucus entrepreneur and a dedicated secretariat. Importantly, the study demonstrates how geographical differences in women’s representation impact on caucuses and posits that caucus structures are not necessarily feminist or intersectional spaces. The article makes an important contribution to global research in this area which tends to focus on caucuses in national parliaments.

Students’ and Parents’ Perceptions of Barriers to Cycling to School—An Analysis by Gender

Internationally, there is increased emphasis on the need to reduce dependency on cars and to encourage more sustainable forms of travel, including active travel. To encourage increased levels of cycling, the focus has generally been on improving cycling infrastructure and on making cycling safer. While cycling rates have increased in many countries, including Ireland, women are often less likely to cycle than men. While there are some notable exceptions to this (for example, in the Netherlands) this phenomenon of lower cycling rates amongst women is common and research shows that the differences between male and female cycling rates can be seen from an early age. This paper explores the reasons why women are less likely to cycle than men, by examining the modal choices of school-going students, and the attitudes of their parents/guardians to their modal choices. The survey was conducted in the city of Limerick in the midwestern region of Ireland. The results show multi-factorial barriers to cycling to school for girls compared to boys. Uniforms, traffic concerns, physical efforts of cycling, effects on personal appearance, and peer-influences were factors affecting girls more than boys. Male parents/guardians did not significantly differentiate by the gender of their children in relation to factors associated with cycling to school, unlike female parents/guardians who were found to be significantly less supportive of their daughters than their sons. Additionally, parents/guardians were generally more likely to afford their male children greater independence in their school travel choices. While there are many considerations that would affect students’ perceptions towards cycling, an adjustment to the school uniform policy would, at least, remove the most significant barrier for girls. Further research must be carried out to determine how to shift the perceptions of the efforts associated with cycling, especially among girls, and how to encourage female parents/guardians to better support their daughters to cycle to school.

Determinants of support for directly-elected mayors in Ireland

ABSTRACT In May 2019, three Irish local authorities ran plebiscites alongside their local elections: Cork City Council, Limerick City and County Council, and Waterford City and County Council. The plebiscites were run to judge support for Government proposals to introduce a reformed, directly-elected mayoral office. The results were, in some ways, the worst possible from a Government perspective: a mix. While voters in Limerick backed the plan by a slight majority, it was marginally rejected in both Cork and Waterford. Faced with disappointing a large group of voters no matter the course of action taken, the Government shelved the plans for Cork and Waterford indefinitely, though the plan for Limerick may proceed. Despite the 2019 rejections, the 2020 UCD Online Election Poll (INES 1) found indications of high levels of support for these reforms: four-in-five respondents agreed that mayors should be directly elected, which is a significantly higher proportion than the Yes vote in any of the three plebiscite areas. This research uses further data from the online poll to establish correlates of support for these reforms, and tentatively suggests that partisan dynamics in turnout are why this support wasn’t reflected in the plebiscite results.

‘And then again, I draw myself to the detail’

This article illustrates the creative process and conceptual impetus for the development of the piece Expanded Fields; a moving image installation with live performance, sound and virtual reality which was first presented in the Limerick City Gallery of Art in November 2019. The work highlights multiple filters through which the audience can encounter a piece of choreography, using a range of different media to invite the viewer into various degrees of proximity with the dancers in movement. Co-authors Ruth Gibson and Jenny Roche contextualise this collaboration undertaken with artist Bruno Martelli, composer Mel Mercier and the dancers, Kévin Coquelard, Henry Montes and Ursula Robb and articulate the application of process tools utilised to create the work. They draw on contributions from these collaborators on their experience of the making process as well as through materials produced by all involved in the development of the piece. The process tools included Micro-phenomenological Interviewing (MPI), movement initiated writing, Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT), motion capture, filmmaking and audio recordings. These methods were interwoven to reveal the tapestry of experiential layers that can be accessed when dancing or viewing a piece of dance. Placing them together within a gallery installation space and grounding these perspectives through episodic live performance, allowed the material to be encountered through various sensorial frames, from the immersive VR environment where the avatars of the dancers moved close to the viewer’s body, to the foyer space where footage of the dancers from studio rehearsals could be viewed on tv screens. The article situates this creative work in relation to writing by theorists such as Teresa Brennan on affect and André Lepecki on Derrida’s notion of the trace, alongside articulating potential alignments between SRT and MPI.

“Our Toil Doth Sweeten Others”: Processional Banners and the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment

“Our Toil Doth Sweeten Others”: Processional Banners and the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment Brandi S. Goddard (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The Repeal! Procession, organized by the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, April 13, 2018, Limerick City, Ireland. Photograph © Dierdre Power. Banners in view: Respect My Decision (right), The Journey (left), and the Eye Bannerettes (back). Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The Repeal! Procession, organized by the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, April 13, 2018, Limerick City, Ireland. Photograph © Dierdre Power. Left to right: Eye Bannerettes, Dragon Slayer, and The Journey. [End Page 108] on april 13, 2018, over two hundred women and men departed on foot from the Limerick School of Art and Design—the site of the Good Shepherd Magdalen Laundry from 1848 to 1990—and solemnly marched through the city center and across the River Shannon to the former site of the Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory, the location of EVA International, Ireland’s biennial art exhibition that was due to open the following day. The Repeal! Procession, organized by the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment, included dancers, musicians, artists, and supporters carrying dozens of placards bearing the Repeal movement’s symbol.1 The most visually affective element of the procession was a series of colorful handmade textile banners that bore evocative images relating to the bodies of women and their experiences under the oppressive Eighth Amendment, as well as powerful allusions to the agency, strength, and victory of the movement, and therefore of Irish women. This article argues that the processional banners are material manifestations of a collaborative and feminist art practice that functions to subvert the repression and oppression of women’s bodies under the Eighth Amendment. The affectivity of the Repeal! Procession, as explored through the processional banners, is realized through the form of the female body, through the creative labor of textile production, and through the public visibility of the female body in an activated and agential manner. Conceived in 2015 during “a drink among friends,” the Artists’ Campaign to [End Page 109] Repeal the Eighth Amendment was founded as a grassroots activist collective that sought to use the visual arts to draw attention to, and garner support for, the growing movement to repeal Ireland’s constitutional Eighth Amendment.2 The group was established by visual artists Cecily Brennan, Alice Maher, and Eithne Jordan and poet/playwright Paula Meehan. Initially the movement was largely organized online and aimed to garner support among artists, writers, musicians, and actors for a Citizens’ Assembly on the Eighth Amendment.3 The group’s online petition garnered signatures from many of Ireland’s well-known literary and cultural celebrities, including John Banville, Edna O’Brien, Christy Moore, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín, Cillian Murphy, and Neil Jordan.4 The campaign emerged as one of several artistic responses to the Repeal movement. In her article on abortion rights campaigns, Niamh NicGhabhann foregrounds the work of organizations that mobilize the visual arts—especially the use of legible, visible, and highly memorable imagery—in the service of public political protest.5 As she notes, the Repeal! Procession—similar to groups such as Speaking of IMELDA and the Sligo Handmaid’s Tale protest in 2017—emphasizes the individual and personal on a tangible physical level rather than at the level of ideology or philosophy. Similarly, Sydney Calkin argues that the very public nature of much of the art relating to the Repeal movement “disrupts the [End Page 110] narrative of an abortion-free Ireland” by bringing abortion travel to the United Kingdom into scrutiny within an Irish context.6 Through performative artworks that reproduce the travel experiences of women going abroad to access abortion services, the issue becomes re-situated within Irish borders. Despite a huge increase in artists addressing abortion issues in the period 2012–18, Suzanna Chan looks back in time to note that abortion has frequently been a topic of interest in the work of Irish feminist artists.7 She cites in particular Pauline Cummins and Louise Walsh’s Sounding the Depths: A Collaborative Installation (1992) and Shelagh Honan’s...

Indelible stain: territorial stigmatization and the limits of resistance

AbstractThis article examines the impact of territorial stigma in Limerick, a peripheral Irish city, and whether such stigma can be successfully resisted. It begins by exploring the development of the concept of territorial stigma and its five key characteristics. We reflect on how stigmatization has impacted communities in this city. We then utilize Katz’s (2004) three dimensions of resistance—resistance (denoting an ‘oppositional consciousness’), resilience (denoting coping with life under territorial stigma) and reworking (denoting the recasting of the objects of stigmatization through alternative interpretations) to make sense of how stigmatized identities are being challenged/erased/masked in the context of a top-down ‘rebranding’ of Limerick City. Ultimately the article argues that the capacity of grassroots resistance alone to alter discourses, which although locally focused are intermeshed with much larger ideological conflicts, is questionable.

Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland: Religious Practice in Late Modernity by Gladys Ganiel (review)

Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland: Religious Practice in Late Modernity, Gladys Ganiel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 273 pages. The changing place of religion in Ireland is perhaps the most dramatic societal trend of recent decades. Gladys Ganiel, a sociologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, is one of the leading figures seeking to chart, analyse and understand these changes. In Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland, we see the fruit of a multi-year project that began as an investigation of ecumenism in Ireland.1 In the course of extensive interviews and surveys, Ganiel and her associates discovered a great vitality and diversity flourishing around the margins of an Irish church apparently in steep decline. She presents an argument here that the socio-religious changes taking place have created space for what she calls ‘extra-institutional’expressions of religion. She has documented movements through which people sustain and nourish their faith alongside, in addition to, or outside the formal strictures of the church as it has been commonly understood. Her guiding metaphor is of a religious market which, having been monopolised by Roman Catholicism, is now increasingly diverse. Within this space, competing actors offer different approaches to exploring spirituality and the extra-institutional expressions can prompt personal transformation – without collapsing into rampant individualism – which ‘has the potential to contribute to reconciliation on the island of Ireland’.2 Her first two chapters situate the conversation. Post-Catholic is a category most prominently advanced in Irish discourse by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. In an essay about renewal for America magazine in 2013, he used the phrase to frame the present situation in terms of what went before. This recognition of the inevitable centrality of history (and a keen appreciation of geography) establishes the argument Ganiel advances on solid ground. Post-Catholic, in this usage, does not mean to suggest that Catholicism is gone. Rather, it foregrounds the fact that contemporary Irish religion – in all its diverse forms – must engage with the changing place of Catholicism. It describes a shift in consciousness, not an inevitable institutional trajectory. The Catholicism of a previous era ‘has been displaced’ and a ‘mixed religious market’now prevails.3 It does not follow that the island is secular (for whatever meaning one proposes), post-Christian, or post-religious. In fact, Ganiel notes that people in Ireland have a relatively high rate of religious identification.4 If Ireland is a post-Catholic religious market, so what? In chapter three, Studies • volume 109 • number 433 97 Spring 2020: Book Reviews Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 97 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 97 27/02/2020 13:59 27/02/2020 13:59 Ganiel investigates the societal implications in terms of reconciliation. The initial project which inspired this book was a survey of attitudes to ecumenism which aspired to reach out to every church leader on the island (over 4,000 invitations were sent out),5 based out of the Irish School of Ecumenics. What Ganiel and her collaborators established in these surveys is that, while churches are cognisant of the Christian prerogative to engage constructively in the processes of social change, there remains much work to be done at the parish level in terms of welcoming and integrating immigrants and that the work of ecumenism specifically and reconciliation more generally face significant challenges.6 The hypothesis that drives this book forward is the idea that extrainstitutional expressions of faith offer more potential for transformative contributions on these critical social questions. Chapters four through ten test this idea with case studies from around the island. Each case study consisted of interviews with a representative sample of the communities investigated. At first glance, some of these examples are not obviously extra-institutional. What could be more ‘establishment’ than a parish pastoral council (chapter four discusses the one in Ballyboden), and are there any aspects of the historic church more enduring than monastic communities (chapter nine concerns the Holy Cross Benedictine monastery in Rostrevor)? Ganiel nevertheless makes a strong defence that the particularities in each case warrant the description. The other case studies include the now-closed Jesuit youth initiative Slí Eile, the Pentecostal Abundant Life congregation in Limerick city, the joint Presbyterian and Methodist community in Waterford, the Redeemed Christian...

The Helen Lester Memorial Lecture 2018: the leper squint: spaces for participation in primary health care.

I want to tell you about the leper squint in St Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick City, Ireland. This is an architectural feature in the outer wall of the 800-year-old building that was designed to allow lepers to see Mass without having to come into the main body of the church. This was because lepers were feared and considered socially undesirable. As a consequence, they could not be admitted to the main space of the church where the rest of the worshippers were congregated. There are examples of the leper squint in many countries, and they reflect the genuine fear in medieval times that leprosy was contagious. However, we also know that behaviour towards lepers was a function of what sociologist Erving Goffman called ‘social stigma’ . This arises from negative labelling and stereotyping that discredits individuals, dehumanises them, and creates a real distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’.1 In this fifth Helen Lester Memorial Lecture, I would like to explore how the leper squint is an image that we can use to develop our understanding of spaces for participation in primary health care. I will focus on how these spaces are experienced by migrants, because this resonates with the theme of this year’s conference, ‘Populations on the Move’, and Helen Lester’s 2008 article about asylum seekers and the politics of health, which has disturbing parallels a decade later.2 In the social science literature about the conceptualisation of space, Doreen Massey’s work was ground-breaking. Following interpretive rather than positivist thinking, she emphasised that places and spaces not only have physical dimensions but are also shaped by temporal and social dimensions.3 This means that primary health care is something that is arranged and rearranged in different settings, in different ways, and in different times. It is not a ‘fixed’ entity: …

Transformative Teaching and Learning Through Engaged Practice: Lecturers’ and Students’ Experiences in a University and Underserved Community Partnership in Ireland

The Community Wellness, Empowerment, Leadership and Lifeskills (CWell) program is a 2-year community-driven program developed in partnership between an underserved community in Limerick City and staff at the University of Limerick, Ireland. This article explores the transformative teaching and learning experiences that arose throughout the duration of the program for the lecturers and students. Data were collected through interviews and focus groups with lecturers and students involved in the program. Students supported the notion of “learning differently” and focused around prior learning and attitude to learning, learning about learning, and impact of learning. Lecturers supported the notion of “teaching differently,” focusing on how they had revised their usual teaching practices to more overtly emphasize the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy and student-centered learning (as opposed to content-centered) and the situated learning perspective. There is a necessity for research on diverse and innovative programs to inform culturally responsive pedagogies and transformation for learning.

REGULATION OF MEETINGS AND PROCEDURES OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (EVIDENCE OF THE LIMERICK CITY AND COUNTY COUNCIL)

Introduction. The article considers the experience of regulating meetings and procedures of local government bodies in the Republic of Ireland. The authors for the first time in the domestic literature analyze the provisions of a number of legislative and municipal legal acts of the Republic of Ireland relating to the regulation of the organization and conduct of meetings and related procedures of the Limerick City and County Council. Materials and methods. The methodological basis of this research is formed by such general scientific and special methods of cognition of legal phenomena as a method of system-structural analysis, a formal-legal method, a logical method, and others. Results. The Standing Orders of the Limerick City and County Council, adopted in 2016, are very formal and regulate quite thoroughly the issues of organizing and holding meetings of the Council and the organically related procedures of the Limerick City and County Council. Standing Orders of the Limerick City and County Council are more focused on the regulation of procedural, rather than institutional aspects of the organization of the Limerick City and County Council. The Standing Orders, regulating the relationship of the mayor with the Council, ensure the significant role of the mayor of the Limerick City and County, who is also the chairman of the Council, in the activities of the Council, since his powers extend to solving a number of issues, including those outside the scope established by law and standing orders. Discussion and Conclusions. The Standing Orders allow for the presence of the public and media representatives at meetings of the Council, which ensures an adequate level of openness and transparency in the meetings and activities of the Council. The Standing Orders allow for following the institutional and procedural features of the organization and activities of meetings of the Limerick City and County Council, they are characterized by dynamic development and democratic potential and create the conditions for proper organization of collective work of advisers, officials and employees of the Limerick City and County Council.

‘Sicherheit’: examining residents’ perceptions of community safety in working-class residential areas undergoing regeneration in Limerick City, Ireland

This paper examines the perceptions of residents’ in two housing estates in Limerick, a peripheral Irish city, on how (un)safety effects their day-to-day lives and is an intrinsic element in the production and reproduction of their urban territories. In focusing on these areas which are currently ‘undergoing’ the largest urban regeneration project in the history of the Irish State, our analysis provides new insights into the intersections between regeneration processes and (un)sicherheit. Significantly, our findings demonstrate that regeneration processes, often billed as enhancing community safety, can in fact contribute to destabilising the triumvirate of safety, certainty and security.

General Synod of the Church of Ireland

This year's General Synod, the third meeting of the triennium, was held in Limerick City in a hotel with conference facilities. It was the first time that the General Synod had met in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe. The Synod passed Bills relating to ecumenical canons, General Synod membership and confirmation registers, as well as the ongoing area of pensions. There was also a Bill fixing anomalies relating to cross-references in the Constitution following the consolidation of part of the Constitution at last year's General Synod. Bills relating to the table of contents of the Book of Common Prayer were also passed.

The Untidy Playground: An Irish Congolese Case Study in Sonic Encounters with the Sacred Stranger

This paper explores the proposal that music, and particularly singing, has unique properties that render it amenable to encounters with “the other” or the sacred stranger. Drawing on the deconstructionist works of Kristeva and Derrida, as well as the postmodern hermeneutics of Kearney and Caputo, it explores current debate concerning the nature of “the sacred” in contemporary life and the erosion of the theistic/atheistic divide, while proposing a deepening of the debate through the inclusion of the performative. As philosophical and theological discourses embrace this aporia, it does so against the backdrop of unprecedented human migration. The concomitant cultural and social disruption throws up new questions around the nature and experience of religion, spirituality and the sacred. This paper explores these questions in the context of a Congolese choir called Elikya, which was established by a group of asylum seekers in Limerick city, Ireland, in 2001. In tracking the musical life of this choir over the last decade and a half, including two musical recordings and numerous liturgical, religious and secular performances, it suggests that the sonic world of the choir both performs and transcends these descriptors. Using a three-fold model of context, content and intent, the paper concludes that musical experiences such as those created by Elikya erode any easy divisions between the religious and the secular or the liturgical and the non-liturgical and provide sonic opportunities to encounter the sacred stranger in the untidy playground of creative chaos.

The Irish World Music Café: Performing and Recording as Tools for Sustainable Social Integration

This arts-based and ethnographic research comprises two video submissions; ‘Elikya’ and ‘Irish World Music Café’ as well as an accompanying paper exploring the potential contribution of live musical performance and video recording to sustainable social integration for new migrant communities. The research is anchored in an exploration of an initiative called The Irish World Music Café in Limerick city, Ireland. The café is a community-based event promoting social singing for new migrants and Limerick residents in the heart of the city. The paper discusses the growing body of evidence concerning the role played by music (particularly singing) in supporting sustainable social integration. It also presents two video-based projects: the first captures the live performances of the café with the second focusing on Elikya, a Congolese music group associated with the café. The paper also discusses the growing importance of video documentation in supporting and disseminating live performance events such as the café. Using Turino’s categories of cultural formations and cultural cohorts (2008), it argues for the role of the café, both as a live event and a recorded phenomenon, in contributing to the development of alternative values and social change.

Locating culture, making soundscapes and activating critical social relations: A case study from Limerick SoundScapes

Abstract Limerick SoundScapes is a sound-mapping project that seeks to critically engage citizens of the multicultural, socially and economically divided post-industrial City of Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. Facilitated by an interdisciplinary team at the local university, citizens from all walks of life are encouraged to traverse the city, using hand-held recorders to capture a vast array of sounds and create soundscapes. Initially, we locate the project within the context of a city currently experiencing a state-sponsored programme of urban regeneration. The project is also understood in terms of top-down and bottom-up cultural initiatives, particularly in relation to Limerick’s designation as National City of Culture 2014. In addition to looking at how Limerick SoundScapes was conceived and realized through a pilot programme in 2013, we focus specifically on two members of two local participating organizations as an example of how the project operates. Through the activities and experiences of these two volunteer recordists, we illustrate how the project is as much (if not more) focused on engagement and building social relations as it is on producing a finished product that seeks to sonically and culturally represent the city. Such projects have the capacity to promote real diversity and a critical and participatory citizenship through shared, creative goals and a dialogic of doing. However, we also show that culture is often understood in a particular way in Limerick, which we argue is to the detriment of investing in bottom-up projects that can potentially build ‘institutional capacity’ and boost ‘civic creativity’.