Limerick, Ireland

As everyone may or may not know for the spring semester I will be studying abroad in the Republic of Ireland. And while I am still working on finishing my last few blog posts about Morocco, I thought i would go ahead and start posting some from my time in Ireland so far!

My first weekend trip with some of my suit mates was to Limerick, Ireland.

Transportation & Arrival

This lovely morning we decided to wake up at what even to me seemed like an almost ungodly hour in order to take the early train to Limerick.  It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t already sleep deprived from switching time zones.  I ended up waking up around 4:20am to then walk 40 minutes to the train station.  The streets while empty were lit with street lamps though, which was quite nice.   The departure of the train was 6:15am and we made it to Limerick about 2 hours and 5 minutes later at 8:20am.  Our train tickets were about €7.49 each way for a grand total of €14.98 or ($15.37). 

When we arrived in Limerick the sun had just barely begun to rise so it was still a bit dark, not to mention cold as well.  Our first activity of the morning was to stop in at a café.  The name of the café in question was Aroma Café.  I am usually not a tea person, but because I was cold I decided to order one anyway.  I had a chai latte with oat milk and it was absolutely delicious!  It was probably the best chai latte I have ever had! 

The Milk Market

Next we walked to The Milk Market which is not, surprisingly, a place where milk is sold.  During the weekend, the market has different specialities on different days.  Saturday is the farmer’s market day. There were fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, baked goods, stalls with crepes, and other foods.  In addition to this there were artisan stalls where a few girls in my group bought jewelry from a lady from Brazil (who also made these adorable woolen creatures too!). We spent awhile walking around here and if I wouldn’t have had to carry them around with me all day, I would have bought my groceries here.  The market is open on Saturday from 8:00am-3:00pm.  The hours for Friday & Sunday can be found here: https://www.milkmarketlimerick.ie. (This market was also the first time I saw a defibrillator in a phone booth, which was a bit of an odd sight to see. After spending more time in Ireland I realize is not solely confined to Limerick though.)

Limerick City Gallery of Art & People’s Park

After this we walked to the Limerick City Gallery of Art.  No ticket was required and we simply strolled in.  It was a small art gallery that was in the middle of changing exhibitions, so there wasn’t too much to see. 

On the ground floor level we saw a wide range of paintings ranging from beautiful landscapes (usually with cows) dating from the 19th century, to art from the last ten years that I personally would have a hard time as labeling as art.  We also saw an interesting sculpture depicting the tree of life with “Creation, Pre-historic American Man, and the Aztecs.”  The upper floor of the gallery gave us all a good laugh with its Lithography prints including one titled “spaghetti” and another “Not wanting to say anything about Marcel.”  We never figured out who Marcel was. 🤣

Right outside, behind the gallery, is People’s Park.  We took a short stroll through the park and admired the bandstand, pavilions, the playground, a memorial pillar, and a decorative fountain.  There were few people out and about walking their dogs and we saw what I thought was a wolf.  It seemed to be walking near a couple and was very calm, but it looked like no ordinary dog I had ever seen before. 

Churches

Unfortunately we did not go into any churches, but we did walk by St. Mary’s Cathedral on our way to a castle.  While St. Mary’s now belongs to the Church of Ireland (Anglican denomination) it was originally built as a Roman Catholic Church in 1168 AD. During our visit to King John’s Castle, which I will talk about shortly, we learned that Edmond Sexton Pery (Former Speaker of the Irish House of Commons) was murdered/died in 1554. Apparently his body was removed from its grave at St. Mary’s Cathedral, hung by the heels on the ceiling, and wasn’t discovered for three whole years. We also walked by St. Michael’s Catholic Church as well.

King John’s Castle

Our next stop was King John’s Castle.  The day prior we had bought tickets online, but when we got there it wasn’t busy at all, so we probably could have waited to buy the tickets.  We were able to get student discounts on our tickets which came out to €11.50 apiece.  There was an interactive museum that had videos to watch, signs to read, activities to try and even period costumes to try on.  In addition to this you get to visit parts of the castle including the great hall, the courtyard, and the various rooms. The castle was commissioned, as one can probably guess, by Kind John during his visit to Ireland in 1210 AD (the younger brother of Richard I). King John never actually visited the castle, but somehow several centuries after its building it became his namesake.

Underneath the current buildings you can walk and see exposed archaeological parts of the original castle that still exist including where tunnels were dug during the 1642 siege.  We also went up the tower and walked along the balustrade for a view of the adjacent river and city of Limerick.  

My personal favorite part of the castle was learning and seeing a photo of the excavated remains of the women and children that were buried during the siege of 1642.  After our time in the castle we wandered through its giftshop and ate our brown paper bag lunches sitting in their small café.  In the afternoon we did some meandering throughout the city.  At the end of the day we had ended up walking over 11 miles! 

Limerick Museum

We walked over bridges, saw the 1916 memorial on a bridge, and made a stop at the Limerick Museum to learn more about the city’s history.  They had information about the manufacture of lace in the city. Limerick is one of if not the most famous for producing Irish lace. The production of this lace began in 1829 and its industry grew into the 1850s. Many famous women at the time including both Queen Victoria and American First Lady Edith Roosevelt wore apparel with Limerick Lace. In addition to the small lace exhibition, there were photographs, an ostrich egg, a diving suit, examples of the lace, different items from different wars, and my personal favorite, a dried cat from 1894. 

Dinner & Departure

For dinner the group ate at The Old Quarter GastroPub.  While the intent was to find Irish food this pub had an interesting array of food.  This ranged from fajitas to fish & chips to pasta carbonara.  I ended up with the only gf, df, and egg-free option on the menu which was a Green Thai Curry.  While a little spicy for my taste it was actually quite delicious and I ate it with French fries.  It was definitely a little on the pricier side at €16.50, but I ended up with leftover that I ate for lunch the next day. 

At the end of our day we took the 7:50pm train back to Galway and arrived almost two hours later at 9:42. As I mentioned earlier, we did go to Limerick on a Saturday.  Due to this I had expected there to be a lot more people out and about and for places to be packed or busy.  This was not the case though and quite a few shops were closed as well.  

I really enjoyed my day in Limerick and would definitely recommend it as a wonderful day trip to those visiting Ireland.