Limerick council to chase up Papal invitation

LIMERICK City and County Council bosses are to write to the Papal Nuncio to seek an update on the Pope’s proposed visit to Ireland.

It comes after Fine Gael councillor Elenora Hogan sought an update on what the local authority has done to try to ensure His Holiness Pope Francis emulates his predecessor Pope John Paul II and visits Shannonside.​

In response, meetings administrator Christy O’Connor said he would be making contact, and he’d expect to have a further update next month.

Cllr Hogan – whose motion 12 months ago originally called for the Pope’s visit to the city – said: “​It will be a great honour for Limerick, and it would put Limerick on the international map, due to the fact he has a large travelling media with him.”

She pointed out that one of Ireland’s first Jesuit communities was in Limerick, in St Mary’s Park, and the Council owns the former Jesuit Boarding School at Mungret College.

“I believe [Redemptorists head] Fr Seamus Enright has met with the Pope and gave him letters written by the inmates of Limerick Prison, as the Pope has regularly visited prisons when abroad on tours. 

“A Papal visit to Limerick 39 years after the visit of Pope John Paul II would be a great honour,” she told the meeting. 

The Pope was greeted by a crowd of 400,000 in the old Limerick Racecourse back in 1979.