Architecture of Limerick

Architecture Of Limerick

As with other cities in Ireland, Limerick has a history of great architecture. A 1574 document prepared for the Spanish ambassador attests to its wealth and fine architecture:

Limerick is stronger and more beautiful than all the other cities of Ireland, well walled with stout walls of hewn marble... There is no entrance except by stone bridges, one of the two of which has 14 arches, and the other 8 ... for the most part the houses are of square stone of black marble and built in the form of towers and fortresses.

Many examples remain in the city to the present day - though much has been lost also, through wars, decay and modern development. Present-day Limerick has perhaps not as extensive historical architecture as other Irish cities, though some very notable examples remain, such as the 800-year-old St. Mary's Cathedral and King John's Castle.

Read more about Architecture Of Limerick:  Medieval Limerick, Georgian Architecture, Victorian and Edwardian Architecture, 20th Century, Bridges, Architecture Lost and Found, Modern Architecture

Famous quotes containing the words architecture of, architecture and/or limerick:

    “For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
    —Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)

    “Galway is a blackguard place,
    To Cork I give my curse,
    Tralee is bad enough,
    But Limerick is worse.
    Which is worst I cannot tell,
    They’re everyone so filthy,
    But of the towns which I have seen
    Worst luck to Clonakilty.”
    —Anonymous. “Clonakilty,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)