Caring for our river paths
Limerick City and County Council has developed a smart phone app which is designed to let people quickly and easily report sightings of invasive plants like Japanese Knotweed, Giant Hogweed and Himalayan Balsam.
The app is called “Report Invasive Plants” was developed by Mobanode and is available for both iPhone and Android through the App Store and Google Play Store.
As part of the National Spring Clean organised by An Taiscé, we are meeting for a clean-up in Shannon Fields on 23 April 2016 at 2pm.
The clean-up will be followed by a celebration of the apple trees we planted there last year, and a picnic.
This is a map of the area. For car access, the closest point is Lucas Drive. For walking and cycling, you can walk along the Canal and along the foot/cycling path that connects the Guinness Bridge to Corbally along the Shannon.
We are looking forward to seeing you there! Keep in touch through the event page on Facebook!
We are joining Team Limerick Clean-up (http://
The meeting point will be the Clare Street gate to the Canal Bank (behind Great Gas Petrol Station) at 2pm.
Thanks to generous support from a donor working with the Irish Seed Savers Association, we are getting a number of Irish native apple trees and we will be able to start planting fruit trees on the canal and Corbally side. Come and join us on Saturday, 28 February 2015 at 2pm!
The meeting point is the exercise fixed equipment on the Corbally side foot path.
Adopt a tree together with your family and friends, and watch over it as it starts bearing fruit!
Here’s a satellite image of our orchard-to-be – the public areas along the north bank of the Park Canal and the high ground in the wetlands to the north of the fields. It is very muddy, which is good for digging but bad for clean clothes, so be sure to wear raingear and wellies!
The poor little Abbey River gets neglected. We’ve done so much for her big sister Shannon, it’s time to clear the Island Bank and Corbally Paths. Athlunkard Boat Club have kindly offered to host us, and we’ll have boats and wheelbarrows this time! All welcome.
Sunday, 27 April 2014 at 12:00
Meeting at O’Dwyer’s Bridge, Limerick.
Update:
The clean-up was a great success! See more photos on Facebook!
After the excellent result of last Sunday’s clean-up we are organising a second round from the Groody Bridge to the Park Canal this Sunday (13 April 2014) from 12.00 to 14.00, starting from our base at Richmond RFC.
Meet at Richmond Rugby club, at Park Canal at 12noon.
Gloves, pickers and bags will be provided thanks to An Taisce and Limerick City and County Council.
Groups will work along the river bank and bags will have to be brought back to the Rugby club.
If you can bring a wheelbarrow or a bike, you are more than welcome!
Tea and coffee will be available afterwards.
You can sign up on Facebook.
It’s that time of the year again! The canal and riverbank look much better this year, after all the hard work that went in during the last year. The Limerick Civic Trust team has done an excellent job early this year, cutting down branches and collecting the rubbish.
Our job will be a lot easier this year, so maybe we can spend a bit of time talking about how to maintain the foot path and the riverbanks clean.
We’ll be meeting at 12pm at Richmond RFC on Sunday 24 February. We’ll start the clean-up at 12:30 and we hope to be done by 3pm. At 3:30 we’ll be back in Richmond for a cup of tea/coffee and cake.
View Richmond RFC in a larger map
Today we went down by the canal to estimate how much work needs to be done in two weeks time.
We also looked for little corners that could foster our future “secret garden”.
Joan Lysaght pointed out this interesting plant, that was used as bed straw in the past. It has a lovely scent, but it looks like its use in mattresses was later proved to cause liver and kidney problems.
It’s called Winter heliotrope, also known as Butterbur.
Initially, we had planned to continue cleaning the riverbank from the Anglers’ Walk to the University of Limerick. But a few days ago, Miriam met a professional team hired by the County Council cutting the overgrowth and collecting the rubbish. They have done an excellent job, so now we can focus on the canal bank and collect as much rubbish as we can. Pat will bring his boat again, so that we can collect stuff from the water as well.
We’ll be meeting at Richmond RFC on Sunday, 11 March 2012 at 12.00pm.
We hope to be done by 2pm.
There will be tea and cake in Richmond afterwards. All ages welcome.
A couple of weeks ago, Facebook happened to be the medium where a conversation about the Plassey Riverbank started. During winter, as the water levels went up, the Shannon has brought downstream a lot of rubbish that is now making its banks look very bad. You can see in these photos how the beautiful sunsets and the first flowers of the spring are coexisting with plastic bottles, containers, car wheels and lots of polistyren.
After that conversation on Facebook, we decided we can do something about it ourselves. A Facebook page was created to try and get other people behind this idea.
This is how the We love Plassey Riverbank Facebook page explains why we, the people who love and use this area of the city should look after the canal and riverbank:
The University of Limerick is situated on the bank of the Shannon at Plassey. The old towpath goes along the bank to the Park Canal, the Abbey River and the city centre. It is in need of love and care, because people litter it and rubbish washed downstream gets caught on the bank and in the trees.
We made the following video two weeks ago and we posted it on Facebook and YouTube, to encourage people to join us:
For Sunday, 12th of February, we have planned a first clean-up operation:
We are meeting at 12pm at the Richmond RFC (by the railway bridge behind Musgraves).See map below!
If you have leaves rakes, fishing nets, wheelbarrows or any other tool you can think of, bring them
We are planning to try and clean up as much as we can of the canal bank and the river bank toward UL between 12:30 and 15:30 pm.
After the clean-up, we will reassemble at Richmond RFC for a soup&home-baked cakes and to watch the second half of the Munster Junior League final match.
Here’s a link to the Facebook event, in case you want to sign up.
View Richmond RFC in a larger map
The Green Campus Committee at the University of Limerick is supporting the event, and we will get to reuse some of the materials that remained after last year’s spring cleanup.
The Limerick City Council is also providing us with clear plastic bags and gloves, and will ensure the pick up of the rubbish on Monday morning.