Entertainment

The Saturday Limerick Post contains a comprehensive guide to forthcoming gigs, concerts, films and exhibitions and sporting events. The Dublin-based music magazine Hot Press has a national listings section. It's also worth checking through the mounds of leaflets and fliers at the Tourist Office, and consulting the noticeboard in the subterranean cafe at the Belltable Arts Centre at 69 O'Connell Street. The Belltable houses a theatre and gallery, and hosts performances by touring theatre companies, traditional music sessions and dance shows.

The Hunt Museum

The newly-refurbished Custom House on Rutland Street houses the Hunt Collection, a museum with an international reputation, and undoubtedly Limerick's leading attraction. During the 1930s and 1940s, connoisseurs John Hunt, the son of Irish immigrants to England, and his German wife Gertrude assembled a vast collection of decorative objects and works of art, the earliest of which dates back to the Neolithic period. The Hunts' purpose—realized in the exhibition in the Custom House—was to display the objects together in order to illustrate the progression of craftsmanship through the ages.

John and Gertrude were leading experts in the art of the middle ages, and the medieval objects—which include an exquisite bronze model of a charging horse attributed to Leonardo da Vinci—form the strongest area of the collection. The Bronze Age jewellery, and the eighth-century Antrim Cross reflect John Hunt's concern to show that Irish decorative art was comparable in its standards and tradition to that of other European nations. The Limerick Mace and Crozier, two rare and intricate examples of medieval silver-work, are on temporary display in the Hunt Museum. They were commissioned by Cornelius O'Dea, the bishop of Limerick, sometime in the early 1400s. An inscription dates their completion to 1418 and bears the name of their maker, one Thomas O'Carryd. John Hunt described the pieces as a 'the most important objects to Irish metalwork which have come down to us from the middle ages'. O'Carryd lavished great attention on the detail of Bishop O'Dea's crozier, decorating it with two superimposed rows of gold figurines. Those in the lower row, which include Saint Patrick and Saint Munchin (the patron of the diocese of Limerick) nestle inside niches with pinnacled canopies. The crozier is surmounted by a charming representation of the Annunciation.

The collection includes two early works by Picasso: Plat del Dia (1898) is a comical wax and crayon sketch of a tipsy-looking waiter from the artist's favorite hang-out, Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats), in Barcelona. Picasso—so the story goes—sold the sketch to settle his tab at the cafe. After acquiring it John Hunt hung it beside the range in his kitchen in Lough Gur. As you inspect the drawing, bear in mind that Picasso was only seventeen when he drew it. Buste de Femme (1905), an early example of Picasso's lifelong fascination with the female form, sits inside a drawer in an adjoining room. Visitors would need a day to do justice to the collection. Docents (guides) can take you on a general tour of the Hunt Collection, or concentrate on objects from the particular period of history which interest you. Otherwise you can amble around at your own pace, inspecting the contents of the drawers as you go.

Jack Yeats and Sean Keating, two of the most influential Irish painters of the twentieth century, are well-represented in the Limerick City Gallery of Art on Pery Square. You'll find plenty of avant-garde stuff here, and the new spaces in the gallery are striking in their design.

Classical Music in Ireland

During your wanderings you may want to tune your personal stereo to Lyric FM (96-99 FM), the new national classical music and arts station which broadcasts from the new red-brick building on Cornmarket Square. Lyric's popularity reflects a growing interest in classical music in Ireland, itself an indication of increasing national sophistication.

The University Concert Hall hosts classical music concerts (and just about everything else, from Abba tributes to magic shows). You'll get a list of coming performances at the Tourist Office. Limerick University is also home to the Irish World Music Centre. The IWMC hosts summer schools which give young musicians access to the expertise of Ireland's leading traditional musicians. The Theatre Royal on Upper Cecil Street hosts regular raves, jazz performances, and comedy shows.

Sport

Rugger buffs will be interested to know that their sport is extremely popular in Limerick. It seems that a British garrison introduced the sport to the region. It certainly caught on: today Limerick, a smallish city, supports no less than nine clubs. Check the press for details of fixtures at Thomond Park, the ground to which 'the soul of rugby union has been quietly transferred', to quote the Mail on Sunday.