LIMERICK REGENERATION: The urban utopia that was never delivered

In the opening weeks of 2008, Mary McAleese travelled to Limerick to give a grand regeneration plan her presidential seal of approval.

She told an audience in Moyross: “It is a document that will transform your lives as the words become action. When I arrived today, I saw a lovely rainbow over Moyross. That was a benediction and I took it as a special sign of hope.

“You have been through so much in past years that your expectations of any real change may be low, and who could fault you for that,” she told locals.