Limerick monastery looks to solar power

A LIMERICK RELIGIOUS order is looking to embrace the technological benefits of the 21st century by installing solar panels on their monastery.

The Redemptorists, who have been in Limerick since the 1800s, have been a core part of the city’s culture for over a century and are now looking to combine green energy with some of the city’s prominent historical architecture.

Members of the religious order have submitted a planning application to install self-cleaning solar panels on the twelve-bay, three-storey, limestone monastery building on the South Circular Road.

According to the Redemptorists themselves, they first came to Limerick in 1851 to preach a mission in St John’s Cathedral.

Then, after two years, they established a temporary presence in Bank Place and moved to the present site – which they named Mount St Alphonsus – in 1854.

The church at Mount Saint Alphonsus was completed on December 7, 1862, while St Clement’s College, a secondary school for boys, was established in 1884.

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According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the monastery itself, which will house the solar panels if the application is successful, was built around 1860.

The Redemptorists in Limerick have shown a keen ability to adapt to the times, having held their Novena, a celebration in honour of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, online over Covid times.

The group also play a massive role in aiding the impoverished in Limerick each year, distributing hampers to an estimated 7,000 households this past holiday season.

The drive marked the 51st anniversary of the appeal.

Since the start of the initiative in 1972, an estimated 300,000 Christmas hampers have been distributed to the people of Limerick.