My new year’s resolution is…. well-known Limerick people look ahead to 2019

Vicky Phelan, CervicalCheck campaigner

Like most women, my New Year’s Resolutions have tended to centre on outward appearances. 

Before I was diagnosed with cancer, one of my New Year’s resolutions always involved trying to lose weight and fit into clothes I haven’t fit into since before I had children! 

And, of course, to lose the weight I convinced myself that I would have to follow a training programme that was unsustainable with working full-time and having two young children. This New Year, New Me mantra also involved trying to climb another step on the career ladder or starting a PhD.” 

“Now, faced with a terminal diagnosis and not knowing how much time I have left, I realise how ‘shallow’ these New Year’s Resolutions were. I mean who really cares whether I weigh 10 stone or 8 stone, certainly not my husband or my children who simply want me to be alive and are perfectly happy with me the way I am. 

The pressure to be thinner comes from within and from worrying about what other women think. The pressure to climb the career ladder also comes from expectations that we put on ourselves and from society. 

And so, this year, my only Resolution is to enjoy life because life is precious and none of us know when it may be taken away from us.

Jessica Hockedy, Make-up artist and Leader columnist 

I definitely think my New Year’s resolution would be to find happiness in front of me and not to constantly look for happiness in material things. We are all guilty of the perception that money makes us happy when in fact money can be the devil! I've done a lot of travelling this past year, I've seen a lot of different cultures and how different people live their lives. The one thing they all have in common is that they are rich with happiness. They don't stress like we do and they spend more time with people who matter instead of trying to please the people who care less about us! 

Cllr James Collins, Mayor of Limerick City and County

My New Year’s resolution for 2019 is to get elected to Dáil Eireann. Mícheal Martin has now extended the confidence and supply agreement until 2020 because of Brexit.  

So for me, the first six months of the year will be very busy as Mayor and then we are going to have a local election in May. 

Before I finish my term as Mayor in May, there’s a few things that I’d love to see happen. The Gardens Building is finishing construction so we’d like to see that open and people working there. 

Opera Centre is going in for planning, so we’d love to see planning granted for the Opera Centre. I have said all along, and the news broke last week, that we’d love to see UL commit to the city centre.

I’d like to see that project developing into a reality. There’s a couple of other long term goals that we mightn’t see in a year. I’d love to see a proper transport network for Limerick. Limerick also needs a cultural heart. There’s lots of different cultural organisations in Limerick and what they need most is space to create. It would be great to see if we could have a Limerick arts and cultural centre. 

I’d also love to see more concerts, festivals in Limerick during 2019. 

Emma Langford, Musician and RTÉ emerging folk artist of the year

I’m giving myself next year to work on my next album. So, my resolution is to be a bit kinder to myself, to give myself a bit more down time. This year has been insane, which is a great complaint, but I did 100 original gigs and on top of that I did charity gigs and weddings and corporate events as well. 

It's been relentless. Next year I’m committed to being a bit kinder to myself. I’ve cut out the booze as well, at the start of October, and I’m going to try keep that going for as long as I can. When you are gigging every third night of the week, and there’s a real kind of a drinking culture anyway in Ireland, but there’s another level of it in the music scene.

So I just decided to cut it out of my life because I was losing days to hangovers and I wasn’t being as productive as I would have wanted it to be. Little steps like that, going to counselling, there just little things everyone can do to look after themselves. 

It's easy to see self-care as something like going for a bubble bath or buying yourself something nice, but it's the hard things of just getting a good night's sleep, not drinking or drinking enough water that helps. While I’m taking a step back from gigging, I’m going to be working  just as hard. I’ve gotten a grant from the Arts Office and that will help me work on my next album. 

It's going to make my life much easier, having a couple of months where I can just focus on working on the material for a new album.