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New French Ambassador Chooses Limerick for First Trip West
Morgan Whelan, Emma Morgan, Dr Loïc Guyon, Honorary Consul of France, Michelle Gallagher, CEO of the Limerick Chamber, new French Ambassador Céline Place, Noel Gavin, President of the Limerick Chamber, Laurence Garric, Chamber member, with Lavinia Ryan and Alan Higgins
Her Excellency Ms Céline Place, the new French Ambassador to Ireland, chose Limerick city for her first official trip to the West of the country
On Tuesday, November 5, Ambassador Place began her day-long visit to Limerick meeting with the Irish Aid division of the Department of Foreign Affairs on Henry Street.
This meeting was followed by a visit to Alliance Française Limerick, the oldest Alliance Française in Ireland.
The Ambassador met with the directors, teachers and students of the 80-year-old not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of French language and culture. Irish Aid employees have been students of Alliance Française Limerick for well over a decade.
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She also met with “les Enfants francophones”, an association providing French classes and other activities to French-speaking children in Limerick and Ennis.
Ambassador Place then visited the Hospitality Campus of the Limerick-Clare Education & Training Board on the occasion of the annual lunch prepared and served by the campus students to mark the end of their two-year training.
Commenting on the event, Ambassador Place said, “I was really impressed by the skills displayed by all the trainees and the dedication of their teachers. The 8-course menu was top-class and both the cooking and waiting students showed a savoir-faire that augurs really well of their future careers”.
After a meeting with Michelle Gallagher, the new CEO of the Limerick Chamber and some of chamber’s board members who provided her with an overview of Limerick’s economic assets, Ambassador Place headed to the City Hall where she was welcomed by Mayor John Moran and his team.
The Mayor and the Ambassador discussed the many links, past and present, between Limerick and France as well as forthcoming projects and opportunities in the cultural and economic domains, including the €60 million euro project of French company Neoen to build a solar farm in Ballinknockane, Co. Limerick.
The day ended with a special reception in Istabraq Hall attended by members of the French community during which Dr Liam Chambers, Head of History at Mary Immaculate College, Dr Michael Kelly, Head of the French section of the School of Modern Languages & Applied Linguistics in UL, and Ms Eileen O’Connor, French teacher and former President of Alliance Française Limerick, were presented by the ambassador with the insignia of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques, a French government award honouring exceptional achievements in the field of education.
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