With attendees from Dublin; Cork; Galway; and Limerick, the ULI Ireland visit to Limerick City hosted by Limerick Twenty Thirty Designated Activity Company was a hugely valuable fact-finding mission to ‘The Treaty City’.

With many of us travelling by train, we arrived in Colbert train station and made the short walk to the new Gardens International development (112,000 sq. ft.), offices of Limerick Twenty Thirty, where the group was welcomed by its Chief Executive Officer David Conway and his team.

Following David’s introduction to Limerick Twenty Thirty, its strategy, current- and pipeline- development projects, Vincent Murray, director of Planning, Environment and Place-Making presented the Limerick City and County Council strategy for the development of the city.

In fine weather, the group of twenty, including developers, architects, planners, and agents were soon on our walking tour of Limerick city centre, Georgian Limerick, Opera Square development (550,000 sq. ft.) and Cleeves Riverside Quarter (10 acres, mixed use). For those of us who had not been to Limerick in several years, it was impressive to see the placemaking improvements already completed and the level of high-quality development projects well progressed.

The group were also accompanied by David O’Brien, Chief Executive Officer of Limerick Civic Trust to hear how the rich heritage of Limerick, from its Viking and Anglo-Norman origins through to its twentieth century history, is protected and integrated into 21st century development plans for the city.

Our tour ended with well-earned refreshments at Limerick’s very own Treaty City Brewery before departing at 4pm by train to Dublin and elsewhere.

We would like to thank David Conway and the Limerick Twenty Thirty team for the warm welcome and diligence in hosting ULI Ireland for our first ever city visit. Based on the success of the Limerick visit, there is an appetite and scope for visits to other Irish cities.

We learned a lot and saw first-hand a model for ‘whole-of-city’ development and exemplars from which other cities and large towns in Ireland could also learn.