Rough Guide to Limerick, Wally Cassidy

Growing up in Dublin in the late 70’s-early 80’s, there were plenty of outdoor religious events such as the blessing of the animals, the cross being carried by locals in every suburban area, ‘manic street preachers’ on O’Connell Street, and so on. But it all gradually died out. Tony O’Shea captured it all beautifully in his book Dubliners, which was released around the same time I picked up the camera, though I only got the tail end of it. When I moved to Limerick City a decade ago and saw similar religious events still taking place, I was inspired to pick up the camera again after a twenty year absence. The Catholic church was, and is, ‘on the ropes’ and I believed it necessary to capture as much of it all as I could - maybe one day I would put together a book just on these religious events. For now, these represent a selection of images taken on the streets as a kind of rough guide to Limerick City