Specialist team spends almost 100 days restoring ancient walls of Limerick

CLOSE to 100 days of work have been spent over the last year upgrading Limerick’s ancient city walls.

Limerick City and County Council’s executive archeologist Sarah McCutcheon revealed a team of six people have spent 96 days working to restore the divides back to their former glory.

The local authority had teamed up with St John’s Hospital to upkeep the ancient stone wall on its grounds, and now have moved across the road to the wall at the junction of the New Road and Leila Street in Johnsgate.

Ms McCutcheon said: “This stretch is medieval and in the 17th Century, the two walls were joined as the New Road didn’t exist. We are looking at one of the most impressive city walls left in the entirety of Limerick here in Irishtown.”

Four centuries ago, the area was a focal point of the Williamite Siege, where 4,000 people lost their lives.

This led to part of the wall to fall, with New Road now running through it.

In the 1990s, the Limerick Civic Trust worked to remove lots of the weeds from the wall, and now the council, thanks to grants from the Irish Walled Towns Network are bidding to return them to their full glory.

Ms McCutcheon explained how a substance known as gunnite, a spray-on linewater, is now being used to help restore the wall in places.

”A lot of work was done here in the 1990s by the Civic Trust who did a lot of consolidation work to the walls. You can see that on the other side. You wouldn’t do it now, you need to support the lower facing stones. We’ve used a small amount of gunnite which goes much deeper into the fabric of the wall,” she said.

The archeologist acknowledged gunnite “isn’t pretty”, but added: “With these works, you have to balance aesthetics being true to the building, being able to read the building in the future and having it structurally sound. It’s a real balancing act.”

Ultimately, Ms McCutcheon added, the aim is to develop a full trail of Limerick’s City Walls.