Paddys Day parade in Limerick

banjobongo

so what did you think of it (If you went)?
TBH I was very dissapointed. Too many fireengines, very few floats, no references as far as I could see to what the theme was supposed to be, no imagination shown, very long gaps between the various acts. I saw on TV some of the parades accross Ireland and they all looked better than Limerick. I have been at every parade for over 10 yrs now in Limerick and I think this was the worst one unfortuantely...

Red King

It is the same shoite every year with the same complaints and the same people involved.

It is cringeworthy and the parades around the country aren't much better.

Jofspring

I didn't go to it but on the radio this morning most texting in were saying it was rubbish. I thought the fact they had the 1916 theme would have improved it immensely.

phog

I was at it, been there as a participant and to view down through the years.

It's difficult enough to have a float that's more than a few flags and balloons.

I enjoyed it but it lacked some flair/colour and was too drawn out.

I've no issue with clubs and scout participating in the parade as it's all about kids but they really need to do more than march by.

The best float for me were the Filipino's, nicely decorated and entertained as the travelled along the route.

panda100

I enjoyed it but that's probably the Plastic Paddy part of me honed after years living in the UK. I thought it was lovely to see Myles Breen as Grand Marshall and to be honoured for being such a fantastic Limerick representative over the years.

I actually kinda enjoyed Jedward too

Townie_P

I thought it was a load of garbage. It reminded me of a larger version of the Irish carnival in one of the Father Ted episodes. Whoever is running this parade and filling it with local sports clubs and local businesses needs removing and replacing with someone who knows what they are doing. That stuff is fine for local town parades but the main city centre parade? Cringeworthy rubbish. I saw no theme and no real effort made for this parade at all. An embarrassment for the city and any foreign visitors we had on the day.

eezipc

Does anyone else pronounce Parate the same as Karate?
The Paddys Day parate in Limerick.

jbkenn

How hard can it be to organise a parade?, answers on a postcard to

Grooveyard Event Management
Unit 3, Moycullen Business Park,
Moycullen,
Galway.
Event Management my a$$, third rate shower of chancers, but at least it lets Limerick City and County Council off the hook, parade subcontracted out to a professional event management company, don't blame us.

Special Circumstances

eezipc wrote: »

Does anyone else pronounce Parate the same as Karate?
The Paddys Day parate in Limerick.

Yarrrr.

panda100

A pirate,karate parate parade would have been awesome!

trauma boy

Parade was very disappointing and boring. I brought my 3 year old hoping to see trucks, tractors or even some floats but what we got was wave after wave of small people. Don't get me wrong fair play to all scouts, brownies, guides etc but visually it was poor... No colour no entertainment and the delays between groups was disgraceful. Considering the amount of high vis jackets walking up and down with supervisor / manager written on them with several radios phones and ear pieces hanging off them, you would think good communication not to have delays between groups could be addressed. Some of the bands were fab and one or two floats were ok but from a family day out for kids it was shocking.. By the time jedward came down at the end most of the crowd on o Connell ave had got bored and left.. Limerick 95fm painted a picture this morning that to be honest didn't reflect the people who were standing around me...

stefanovich

There were a few acrobats hanging off a crane by mcdonalds, seemed to impress the crowd. Parade I didn't really pay attention to as I was just going for a stroll through town.

Red King

Live 95, the Limerick Post and Limerick Leader contribute immensely to this bull**** facade that everything is ****ing brilliant that takes place in Limerick. They are the greatest bunch of brown nosing arselickers going and exemplify parish pump don't ask questions don't rock the boat parochial shoite at its worst.

Sorry for the rant but I'm sick to death of these people covering up cronyism and substandard performance in Limerick. They are part of the problem with our city in a big way, everything is swept under the carpet.

stefanovich

Red King wrote: »

Live 95, the Limerick Post and Limerick Leader contribute immensely to this bull**** facade that everything is ****ing brilliant that takes place in Limerick. They are the greatest bunch of brown nosing arselickers going and exemplify parish pump don't ask questions don't rock the boat parochial shoite at its worst.

Sorry for the rant but I'm sick to death of these people covering up cronyism and substandard performance in Limerick. They are part of the problem with our city in a big way, everything is swept under the carpet.

Yep. Limerick has so so much potential. It's still the best city in Ireland in my opinion but it could be so much more.

iguana

I've gone to it for the last 3 and they have all been really, really, really bad but this was the worst by far. The last two years there was actually a couple of floats but this year there was none. I don't count the two open trucks with musicians on them as floats, not that there was anything wrong with them, they were both good efforts and in a parade with some floats would have been a good addition but they shouldn't have been among the highlights. The main parade was just large groups of people walking past in uniforms/team tracksuits with huge, huge empty gaps between them. We spent as much time waiting for the next part of the parade as we did watching anything. The only reason I didn't have a very p'd off toddler with me is that the new route went up past the cathedral so we could watch from the grounds and all the kids there were able to run around and play with each other. I have no plans to ever, ever go to it again. The only positive report I heard about it was from the people who saw the gymnast do a cartwheel into a horse poo, that was apparently hilarious.

I'll be at the band parade tomorrow though as that's always well run and enjoyable if your child enjoys marching bands, which mine does.

letsseehere14

Very disappointing.
I have no problem with sections of the defence forces, order of Malta, gardai, civil defence, etc marching as they contribute so much to society each year and deserve to be applauded. So for me that section of the parade was good. And in it was mixed a few marching and pipe bands.
Where it went wrong was after this. Hardly any floats, mostly just brownies and scouts walking past in they 100s slowly. Seemed like an eternity for them to pass and in between there was no music at all.
The Filipino float was fun and made noise and they looked like they were having fun playing.
It really wouldn't have been hard to add more music, reduce the amount of scouts etc but also get them to actually make a float or presentation on a given theme. Obviously this year it would have been 1916.
It needed more noise and music. More floats and imagination and less lines of kids marching blindly just for the parents to snap a few pictures.

myshirt

The most sickening part of it all is the amount of money paid the way of the event management company for this, and then the extra money paid to senior Limerick CoCo staff for 'facilitating them'.

This is worse than when the Post Office workers got a pay rise for changes to their work that made work easier (the letter sorters in Cork). We have a serious problem with our public service sector. They have the paw out for everything. Money hungry lump sum defined-benefit pension grabbing b#stards.

Piss poor performance there with this parade. Heads need to go. No lump sums. No f#cking extortionate pensions. Just go. This city deserves much more.

juneg

Was there even a band in the main parade? I missed the start of it.

I couldn't believe the stupidity of leaving Jedward ( who the kids wanted to see ) until last. Most people had collected their kids at the end of the parade and gone home by that time. It's a long day for kids who are gathered up in Sarsfield Barracks from 11.00 or so.

Fair play to the Filipino community who raised the spirits when they passed. Spotlight stage school looked great too.

The long gaps were brutal

riverrocked

I left after about an hour when the hoards of scouts started coming. I could only listen to "Everywhere we go" so many times. Missed the iron horse and Jedward. Why where they not earlier in the parade?! Would it be possible to just have flag bears from the different sports/scouts groups and not every single kid trudge boringly down the street.

panda100

Red King wrote:

Sorry for the rant but I'm sick to death of these people covering up cronyism and substandard performance in Limerick. They are part of the problem with our city in a big way, everything is swept under the carpet. Live 95, the Limerick Post and Limerick Leader contribute immensely to this bull**** facade that everything is ****ing brilliant that takes place in Limerick. They are the greatest bunch of brown nosing arselickers going and exemplify parish pump don't ask questions don't rock the boat parochial shoite at its worst.

+1000 to this post.

The fake, superficial and forced positivity of media outlets in limerick is quite damaging to any progress being made in the city imo. Nothing is ever discussed in any real depth because it's always glossed over with that phony 'everything's great' facade. It really annoys me. I don't know who buys into it or believes it. Except for boards there are very few places you can critique or challenge limerick goings-on. The local media certainly don't encourage any frank and open discussion on limerick cos everything is so bloody perfect the whole time.

stefanovich

panda100 wrote: »

+1000 to this post.

The fake, superficial and forced positivity of media outlets in limerick is quite damaging to any progress being made in the city imo. Nothing is ever discussed in any real depth because it's always glossed over with that phony 'everything's great' facade. It really annoys me. I don't know who buys into it or believes it. Except for boards there are very few places you can critique or challenge limerick goings-on. The local media certainly don't encourage any frank and open discussion on limerick cos everything is so bloody perfect the whole time.

Sounds like there is a gaping hole in the market for a cynical hate rag!

mitresize5

gave up on the limerick parade years ago and now head to Kilkee.

It was shorter than normal this year but there was no shortage of floats, tractors etc ..... to entertain the kids.

All the local national and preschools are represented but they are always dressed in costumes and on floats etc .....this year they we all done up in 1916 theme which was very good.

No scouts, brownies, karate clubs etc..... and plenty of space for the kids to watch it.

We've been going there for years now and its very apparent that over the last few years more and more Limerick people are doing the same.

I couldn't recommend it enough

p.s. a bonus that it comes around twice :-)

iguana

mitresize5 wrote: »

All the local national and preschools are represented but they are always dressed in costumes and on floats etc

One of the the things that really p'd me off at the parade was that about half the kids who were in town to watch the parade were all dressed up in their own Paddy's day costumes. So there were all these kids wearing great fun, silly, entertaining outfits supposed to be amused watching other kids walk past in boring uniforms.:pac: It was ridiculous.

Special Circumstances

iguana wrote: »

One of the the things that really p'd me off at the parade was that about half the kids who were in town to watch the parade were all dressed up in their own Paddy's day costumes. So there were all these kids wearing great fun, silly, entertaining outfits supposed to be amused watching other kids walk past in boring uniforms.:pac: It was ridiculous.

In mediocre Ireland, parade watches you.

FutureGuy

stefanovich wrote: »

Sounds like there is a gaping hole in the market for a cynical hate rag!

He is right though....they build up the most mediocre sh!te to be groundbreaking entertainment. The culture and chips festival for example. A laughable event that would not go amiss in an episode of Father Ted.

I cringe at the though of someone from Cork, Galway or Dublin deciding to come down for a weekend to find a few chip vans and a glorified tent from mainland Europe.

The May bank holiday festival has been in decline for about 5 years and there seems to be nothing done about it at all. I spoke to some traders last year and the organization was a disaster apparently. You have the Great Limerick Run and an open air festival on the same weekend. Road closures on the weekend you want lots of people into the city. Genius.

And can we not hire LIMERICK people and LIMERICK companies to run events. The number of companies running stuff in limerick that were contracted from Galway and Cork is scandelous.

No one is calling out the crap and the great events are not getting the recognition they deserve.

Treepole

FutureGuy wrote: »

And can we not hire LIMERICK people and LIMERICK companies to run events. The number of companies running stuff in limerick that were contracted from Galway and Cork is scandelous.

It was a limerick company which "organised" most of the ****e that has been passed off as festivals over the past 5 years.

stefanovich

FutureGuy wrote:

He is right though....they build up the most mediocre sh!te to be groundbreaking entertainment. The culture and chips festival for example. A laughable event that would not go amiss in an episode of Father Ted.

Don't dispute his point and the reality is a critical and objective publication would be refreshing!

TonyCliftonEsq

FutureGuy wrote: »

And can we not hire LIMERICK people and LIMERICK companies to run events. The number of companies running stuff in limerick that were contracted from Galway and Cork is scandelous.

No one is calling out the crap and the great events are not getting the recognition they deserve.

I think one of the problems with Riverfest was that after a promising start it was handed over to a Limerick events company...FutureamaProductions

Just take a look at the main page of their website and the problems mentioned in this thread stare you right in the face...

Namely this choice quote - "This festival (Riverfest) would simple not exist without Fran O'Donnell and and his team at Futureama Productions." - Joe Nash, Chief Executive, Limerick's Live 95FM


Then when you dig a little deeper on the site you discover they are also behind the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Band Parade, Limerick On Ice, and loads of other events in Limerick.

Some more praise from Joe Nash on their testimonials page:

'Limerick’s Live 95FM has worked with Futureama Productions over many years, on a series of high profile public events, which have attracted local, national and international attention. Our closest collaboration has been the hugely successful Riverfest, which celebrated 10 years in May 2014 and has put Limerick on the map as the place to be in Ireland, over the May bank holiday weekend. This festival would simply not exist without Fran O’Donnell and his team at Futureama. They’ve brought their years of experience and many skills to bear on organising this ever expanding long weekend of events. We find that when Futureama are involved in any event, it is organised professionally and the various stakeholders are appropriately accommodated. We look forward to continuing to work with them into the future.'
Joe Nash - Chief Executive, Limerick's Live 95fm.

And then there is this:

The Holman Lee agency are delighted to be associated with Futureama Productions and have worked with the Futureama team on numerous events. We have always found Futureama Productions to be extremely professional in all aspects of our various events together and we look forward to working together in the future.'
Celia Holman Lee & Ger Lee - Directors, Holman Lee Agency, Limerick.


And this:

'Limerick Institute of Technology offer perspective students the opportunity to study a BA (hons)Business Studies with Event Management. Futureama Productions have contributed to this course over the last number of years offering students excellent practical experience. They have given their time also in supporting the programme and assisting with the further development of the course. As a result the course is up to date and answers the immediate needs of Industry. Futureama Productions give generously of their time and expertise and LIT remain extremely grateful to them for this excellent contribution.'
Marie Mitchell - Course Director, BA (hons)Business Studies with Event Management, Limerick Institute of Techology.


And people wonder why Limerick is the way it is...Jesus wept.

Red King

The Limerick Establishment has much to answer for.

zulutango

TonyCliftonEsq wrote: »

And this:

'Limerick Institute of Technology offer perspective students the opportunity to study a BA (hons)Business Studies with Event Management. Futureama Productions have contributed .....

:eek:

Perspective students!!? For **** sake.

Special Circumstances

zulutango wrote: »

:eek:

Perspective students!!? For **** sake.

Haha maybe they could get them to have a look at the off kilter phonebox signage!