Dear Editor, I am totally outraged at Mary Kenny’s remarks about Limerick (IC 04/09/2014 ‘Embracing all causes’), calling it a place notorious for its crime rate – an outrageous and completely untrue comment.
Obviously this lady knows nothing about Limerick, this year’s city of culture and a city so wonderfully served with many heritage sites, museums and art galleries. Many organisations hold their conferences here. Limerick hosts very many sporting events from Ireland and abroad. Mary Immaculate College has a great international reputation, as well as an Irish one.
It’s the old story of the Pale and the rest of Ireland again. Presently, Limerick has one of the lowest crime rates in all of Europe. Compared to Dublin with its almost daily murders and violence, Limerick is tranquil.
Limerick was and is the victim of poor and inaccurate reporting. For The Irish Catholic to publish such offensive and inaccurate comments is unchristian.
Yours etc.,
Liam MacDiarmada,
Ath Dara,
Limerick.
Mary Kenny responds: “I think it’s admirable to see Limerick so warmly supported and defended: my allusion to the association with crime was really more aimed at Limerick’s reputation which, as Sr Claire and Mr MacDiarmada have so robustly pointed out, is ill-deserved. On a more general point, however, I believe the job of a police force is to focus on crime rather than to strike attitudes, however well meant.”