Identity behind popular Limerick Twitter page with thousands of followers revealed

THE IDENTITY behind the popular social media page, UL Confessions has finally been revealed following years of debate and wonder from University of Limerick students.

Joe Saunders, a fourth-year Journalism and Digital Communications student at UL was revealed as the page’s admin in an event held in the Stables Club at the university.

The page which can be found on the social media platform Twitter is a place where students can post general day-to-day thoughts or worries and has gained over 14,000 followers since its initiation in January 2020.

Joe said he started the page as he was familiar with “similar pages from other colleges”.

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“The page took off over Covid as people didn’t have much of a connection with the university… It’s a release for people and a place where they can say whatever they want, ” he mentioned.

For Joe, balancing his time between his final year of university and UL Confessions was sometimes a struggle as hundreds of posts come through the page every week and each one needs to be approved before publication.

“I kind of felt obliged to keep doing it,” Joe said.

“I did have a bit of spare time to do it but it does take some time, copying and pasting the confessions into Twitter every day.”

Even though balancing his time with the page may have been difficult at times, Joe managed to work the page into his college life by conducting his final year project (FYP).

“For my FYP, I filmed a documentary and I’ve only ever told a few of my friends. I filmed some of my friends’ reactions to me telling them about it. I also had to swear my FYP supervisor Fergal Quinn into silence,” Joe said.

“Those that I didn’t tell felt betrayed when they found out,” he laughed.

According to Joe, he has come across some negativity with the page but he likes to “think positively” about it and believes that you “are never going to please everyone”.

“The page does more good than bad and no one's name gets mentioned unless it was about praising lecturers in the college or something like that.”

The event in Stables was a “big success” and was even hosted by Gowl of Tralee Confessions another popular social media page with students.

“I was nervous beforehand and was worried I’d fall up the steps of the stage but it was a really good night and UL Student Life were incredible,” Joe added.