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Roches St Arts festival fundraiser kicks off in style at Lily boutique Roches St Arts festival fundraiser kicks off in style at Lily boutique

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Roches St Arts festival fundraiser kicks off in style at Lily boutique

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9 years ago

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Colm O’Brien and guests at the launch of Roches St Arts Festival at new Lily Boutique. Picture: Paul Mullins.
Colm O’ Brien, local entrepreneur and business author organised this year’s Roches St Arts Festival fundraiser launch on Monday evening at Lily, the newest boutique on Roches St. This years festival will involve over 40 artists and more than 20 outlets on the famous shopping street in Limerick City Centre. 
 
The festival occurs in September each year and local artists display works of art in the outlets where if any are sold some of the proceeds go to the charities. This year CARI and Mid West Rape Crisis will benefit from the event, over 100,000 has been raised by the event in the last 12 years. 
 
There will be a family fun day on Roches St on Saturday September 12th next where Limerick Group Arts Connect will provide face painting and entertainment for the whole family.
 
Launching the festival in Lily, Colm O’ Brien, said that the Arts Festival was a fine example of how the fusion of business and arts in a city of Culture such as Limerick could work. The festival continues to give back to the the community and has raised over one hundred thousand euros since it began. He said it was highlight in the year for him as a former retailer in the city and and highlighted Roches St as a beacon of how to engage with the arts community for other retailers in Ireland and abroad.
 
Speaking at the event was Roy Finucane, of Taxassist Accountants, Current Chairperson of the Roches St Traders,  ” It is with great pleasure that all of the Roches St Traders open their doors to the artists and art lovers of Limerick in aid of this year’s chosen charities CARI and Rape Crisis Mid West. We are delighted that this event is in it’s 13th year and I’d like to personally thank all of those who have worked tirelessly to ensure that the festival is one of the highlights of the social and cultural calendar in Limerick.
 
Mary Madden of CARI, said: “We are delighted that CARI has been chosen as one of the Charities to benefit from the Roches Street Traders Arts Festival week.  CARI Charity Registered number 9491 only gets limited Government funding so we are highly dependent on fundraising.  We are also very appreciate of the awareness that the Roches Street Arts Festival has raised for our organisation.
 
“CARI provides counselling and therapy services for children adolescents and families affected by child sexual abuse.  Our Centre is based on the Ennis Road and all funds raised from the Arts festival will be used in our  Limerick centre to continue to provide our services to a very high standard.
 
“We help our children and families on their journey to regain their innocence, their childhood and hopefully to go on and live a happy and fulfilled life.  Many thanks to the Roches Steet Traders Arts Festival for their wonderful support to CARI.”
 
Arts group Arts Connect will be engaged on Saturday Sept 12th next to offer facepainting and other entertainment on Roches St for the whole family as a part of the festival. Also in Sadliers, fishshop Chef Andrew Carey will offer demonstrations on Saturday all day.
 
Visit the official CARI website here
Check out the CARI Facebook page here and Twitter here
Check out the Roches St Arts Festival Facebook page here and Twitter here
Read more about the Roches St Arts Festival here
Photos by Paul Mullins.
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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.