Awareness
The Limerick Spring Festival of Politics and Ideas in its second year and needs your help
The Limerick Spring Festival of Politics and Ideas in its second year and needs your help
The Limerick Spring Festival of Politics and Ideas returns for it’s the second year from the 17th to the 19th of April and this week sees the launch of its website and a crowdfunding initiative to help finance the festival. The Limerick Spring started life in 2014 as one of the Made in Limerick projects funded through City of Culture and given the success of the inaugural year organisers really want to make The Limerick Spring a regular feature on the calendar and a festival that Limerick can be proud of.
The Limerick Spring celebrates the role of the citizen in our democracy and audiences can look forward to 10 events taking place over a jam-packed three days in venues all over the city from Dolans to Dance Limerick, The Strand Hotel to the Printmakers and 69 O’ Connell Street. The festival will feature a mix of vibrant debate, film premieres and protest music along with satire, art and even brunch! All events encourage very lively audience participation and the theme this year is about citizen activism and exploring where power lies in society.
Organisers are really excited to welcome a number of high calibre, national and internationally renowned guests to the festival including economist, author and independent commentator Philippe Legrain, writer, activist and filmmaker Thomas Fazi academics Jane Suiter and Vincent Durac, Managing Director and European anchor of new media startup Reported.ly, Malachy Browne, Parliamentary Assistant to Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan MEP Diarmuid O’Flynn, writer and satirist Gerard Stembridge and comedian Paddy Cullivan amongst many others.
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Over 15 volunteers have been involved in making the Limerick Spring happen, with a core group involved for the last 4 months. An estimated 1000 hours of volunteering have gone into this festival so far. While last year the festival was able to access funds from City of Culture to help with costs, this year to make the festival happen organisers have to fundraise to stage each of the events and pay for the various speakers to come to stay in Limerick. To that end a crowdfunding initiative through the indiegogo website launches this week where people can invest in the festival and buy their weekend event tickets.
Festival Co-ordinator Jennifer Moroney-Ward says “Limerick has a long tradition of political activism and has played a leading role in the development of the Irish state. This 3 day festival will invite citizens and guest speakers to delve deeper into looking at where the power lies and to discuss the political structures and systems that influence our lives in 2015. We know from last year that there is a huge appetite for this type of event in Limerick and beyond, we just really need people to support us by buying tickets for the events or by making whatever contribution they can. ”
With the festival website and indiegogo now officially launched interested citizens are encouraged to check out the full event lists here and visit here to buy tickets and support the festival.
You can check The Limerick Spring Festival out on Facebook here and on Twitter here.
Read more on The Limerick Spring Festival here.
