City Hall () is a municipal facility at Merchant's Quay,

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

, Ireland. It is the administrative centre of

Limerick City and County Council Limerick City and County Council () is the local authority of Limerick City and County in Ireland. It came into operation on 1 June 2014 after the 2014 local elections. It was formed by the merger of Limerick City Council and Limerick Count ...

History

City Hall was commissioned to replace the Commercial Buildings in Patrick Street which dated from 1805 and had served as the town hall from 1847. In the mid-1980s, the council leaders at Limerick Corporation decided that the council needed larger premises; the site they selected at Merchant's Quay had been occupied by an old gaol which dated from 1789. The complex had ceased to be used for custodial purposes in the 19th century and had served as Geary's Biscuit Factory since the 1920s. Most of the old buildings were demolished in 1988, although the surviving façade of the old gaol, designed by John Nash, was retained as part of the new development. The new building was designed by the

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

-based firm, Burke-Kennedy Doyle, in the Modern style, built in stone blocks and was completed in 1990. The design involved an asymmetric main frontage facing onto the banks of the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( or archaic ') is the major river on the island of Ireland, and at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of I ...

. The complex featured a series of connected

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

s up to three storeys high. A fountain entitled the "Fountain of Heritage", incorporating a sculpture of wild geese by the American sculptor, William H. Turner, was paid for by the people of

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

and installed on the Riverside Walk outside City Hall in 1991. The scuplture was intended to commemorate local families that were forced to flee the city to France in the "

Flight of the Wild Geese The Flight of the Wild Geese was the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France, as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on 3 October 1691, following the end of the Williamite War in Ireland ...

" following the Siege of Limerick and the defeat of the Irish Jacobite army under the command of

Patrick Sarsfield Patrick Sarsfield, 1st Earl of Lucan ( 1655 – 21 August 1693) was an Irish army officer. Killed at Battle of Landen, Landen in 1693 while serving in the French Royal Army, he is now best remembered as an Irish patriot and military hero. Born ...

in 1691. In January 2018, a book of condolence was opened at City Hall, following the death of locally-born singer

Dolores O'Riordan Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan ( ; 6 September 1971 – 15 January 2018) was an Irish musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band The Cranberries. O'Riordan was the principal songwriter of ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:City Hall, Limerick Buildings and structures in Limerick (city)

Government buildings in the Republic of Ireland Limerick City and County Council