Mayor believes case for ambitious change strengthened after Summer in the City

"FECK the begrudgers" was the clear message relayed to Mayor John Moran after the success of his Summer in the City initiative last month.

“FECK the begrudgers” was the clear message relayed to Mayor John Moran after the success of his Summer in the City initiative last month.

Offering his reflections on the fun-filled programme of events, the Mayor said that throughout August people repeatedly stopped him in the streets – their message, he revealed, was to keep going.

“More than a few put it in particularly Limerick terms: ‘Feck the begrudgers.’ It was not so much animosity towards the objectors as an unmistakable hunger for change — and encouragement when I needed it. People had unexpected fun and they want more,” he explained.

Moran also admitted on his latest blog post that the “warmth of those encounters” was impossible to ignore.

“At City Hall, we watched carefully and recorded traffic movements. Schools returned during the final week without the predicted traffic chaos. Adjustments to traffic lights could certainly help, but there was no traffic disaster. Those who observed the result fairly could see that,” the executive mayor insisted.

According to Mayor Moran, many more people spoke instead about the atmosphere, the enjoyment of their children and grandchildren, and the pleasure of seeing people from every background sharing the city together.

“I also heard privately encouraging reports from businesses, including some that had concerns before the programme began. Since then some businesses have begun to share their positive results in public to reinforce the value of the trials.”

The Mayor also welcomed and acknowledged the presence and support of An Garda Síochána throughout the Summer in the City programme. One of the striking features, he claims, was how naturally free of anti-social behaviour its spaces felt when they were filled with people.

“Families, friends, visitors, and sometimes strangers danced, talked and enjoyed themselves together. Children occupied spaces normally dominated by traffic. Older people sat and watched the activity around them.

“People create security through their presence. Activity brings confidence, passive supervision and a sense that a place belongs to everyone,” Mayor Moran wrote in his blog.

“The atmosphere was not one of different groups keeping apart. It was one of people enjoying Limerick together.”

Summer 2026, Mayor Moran disclosed, powerfully reminded him why he sought the honour of becoming Limerick’s first directly-elected Mayor.

“Damien and I deliberately arranged our summer so that we would remain in Limerick for August. I wanted to be here throughout the month — to support the teams, experience the programme on the ground, speak directly to those taking part, understand what was working and what needed to change and, in truth, enjoy the wide range of activities for myself,” he wrote.”

Despite this, he said that “during our scheduled break away in late July, however, I found myself working throughout — not only responding to the political attack, but stepping in because the initiative was not getting off the ground as successfully as we knew it needed to”.

“I want to especially thank those colleagues and others outside City Hall who stepped in to help when I returned. Their work mattered. But I will be honest: the effort by a minority to scupper the entire programme before it began was disheartening for a while until I was able to see more clearly the wider support for the plans.”

He pointed out that the attempted use of Section 140 by a number of Fianna Fáil councillors, if successful, would have stopped all the road closures and prevented the public from experiencing the summer programme and judging it for themselves.

“I was also deeply disappointed and, at times, taken aback by some of the personally abusive comments directed at me and at supporters of Summer in the City on social media,” he revealed.

“Some descended into explicitly homophobic abuse. Others sought to dismiss those attending events as ‘elitists’ or not ‘ordinary’, whatever that is supposed to mean, even as families, children, older people, and people from communities all across Limerick made those spaces their own.

“Debate, disagreement, and scrutiny are essential parts of public life. Personal abuse —and contempt for people simply because they say that they are enjoying and welcome something new — should have no part in our Limerick.”

‘No small group should have a permanent veto over Limerick’s future’

In spite of all this, the Mayor went on to say that he did not come to the end of August discouraged.

“I come out of it energised by what I saw. The Limerick revealed to me over these past few weeks is far removed from the failing picture presented by some of those who opposed the new ideas,” he said.

Refreshed and invigorated by what he has seen over the past weeks, Limerick’s first citizen strongly believes that the experience of recent weeks only strengthens the case for ambitious change. It showed, he insists, that we can do things differently without disaster falling upon us.

“That does not mean every idea will work perfectly or that criticism should be ignored; Summer in the City taught us where we must improve. But constructive criticism is very different from attempting to stop an entire programme before the public has had an opportunity to experience it.

“No small group — political or otherwise — should have a permanent veto over Limerick’s future. The public has now seen what is possible. It is time to carry that ambition forward. I again invite everyone who shares it — including those who questioned this particular programme — to work with me in delivering it.”

Mayor Moran finished with a very personal thank you to everyone “who came out, joined in, tried something different, spent hard-earned money in our businesses, and made these public spaces their own”.

“I did not seek this office simply to administer the city and county as we found them. I wanted to help people imagine what Limerick could become—and use my office to begin turning that imagination into new lived experiences.

“For too long, conversations about change in Limerick have begun with all the reasons something cannot be done. This summer, people showed what happens when we begin instead with possibility.

“The streets did not create Limerick’s energy. The beach did not manufacture its optimism. The music did not invent its sense of community.

“Those qualities were here all along. We simply made space for them. And, together, the people of Limerick rediscovered their city.”