Connect with us
Bring Your Limericks to Limerick Competition Bring Your Limericks to Limerick Competition

Community

Over 2,000 Entries for Bring your Limericks to Limerick Competition

Over 2,000 Entries for Bring your Limericks to Limerick Competition; Ruth Vaughan, Savoy Hotel and Dominic Taylor, Limerick Writers’ Centre, at last year’s competition

Bring your Limericks to Limerick Competition, an international poetry competition, will expand into a three day festival of literature, arts and culture. 

Running from Friday, August 25, to Sunday, August 27, this year’s festival will be led by new director Lisa Gibbons and a new website has been launched. 

“The hope is to make the competition an integral part of the cultural life of the city and further the aim of making the Limerick verse form synonymous with the city of Limerick,” said Ms Gibbons. 


advertisement




advertisement




advertisement




advertisement




advertisement



 The competition was made an international event in 2013 as part of The Gathering celebrations in the University of Limerick and was an enormous success. Since 2013, and now in its fourth year, over 2000 entries have been received for the competition from Ireland and overseas, with 50 finalists turning up on the final night to do battle for the overall prize. Previous winners of the event include North of England performance poet Christine Robinson (2013), Co. Clare based US poet Knute Skinner (2014), Killaloe based writer Fiona Clark Echlin (2015) and last year’s winner Darragh Roche. 

In 2013, to coincide with the competition,  The Limerick’ Writers’ Centre commissioned local historian Dr Matthew Potter to write a history of the Limerick verse and its association with the area.  Outlining the reason for the book he explained that “The aim was to create an awareness of the connection between the place and the poem so that Limerick can establish itself internationally as one of the few places that gave its name to a literary form. Think Shakespeare and Stratford, Joyce and Dublin, Burns and Scotland, Limerick and the Limerick”. 

Limerick, the name of a literary form of poetry is noted to be an important link between the city and its culture. Dr Matthew Potter has written a history of the limerick and says a connection between the poem and the city would help Limerick become known internationally as a place that gave its name to the literary form. A Limerick in literary form is a kind of humorous verse of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter also rhymes. 

This year Dolan’s will host the final of the Bring your Limericks to Limerick Competition on Saturday, August 26. The first prize for the winning Limerick this year is €500.

To find out more about the Limerick Writers’ Centre, please click here.

To read more stories about literature in Limerick, please click here.

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.