NEXT week’s Limerick Pride Festival will celebrate empowerment, liberation, and self-acceptance, with the theme of ‘I am what I am’ ringing out across the Treaty City as the week-long festival gets underway.
Kicking off on Monday (July 8), Limerick Pride LGBTQ Festival’s official launch will take place in the People’s Museum at 6pm, with the ‘Great Queen’ photography exhibition, as well as a ‘Queer through the Years’ event.
The annual festival will culminate on Saturday July 13, with the Limerick Pride Parade filling the streets with colour, song ,and celebration, led by this year’s grand marshal, GOSHH.
GOSHH is a Limerick organisation that provides support, counselling, testing, training, and education to LGBTQ+ people.
Verena Tarpey, CEO of GOSHH Ireland said that the organisation was “delighted to be chosen” for the honour this year.
“It is also fitting that we are celebrating 10 years as GOSHH in 2024. It allows us time to reflect on our beginnings as a grassroots organisation in the 1980s when the Gay Switchboard Limerick was set up by a group of volunteers.”
The rest of next week will also see plenty of talks, performances, and events take place as part of the Limerick Pride festival.
Tuesday July 9 will see a talk entitled ‘Understanding Intimate Partner Violence and Coercive Control: The LGBTQ+ context’ with Men’s Aid taking place in the Hunt Museum.
Later that evening, the Pride Fashion Show at Marco Polo will take place, featuring collections from students of Limerick School of Art and Design.
Friday sees the Limerick Pride Youth Party take place at Lava Javas Youth Cafe on Lower Glentworth Street from 4pm.
Presented by Limerick Youth Service, young people aged 14 to 19 from Limerick and beyond are all invited to enjoy music and meet new people at the free event.
After the highlight of the festival, the Pride Parade, there will be afterparties and events all across Limerick, with the official ‘I Am What I Am Afterparty’ taking place in The Loft at the Locke Bar on Sunday July 14.
Lisa Daly, festival director of Limerick LGBTQ Pride, said that “we are thrilled to be back and able to offer a fantastic weeklong lineup of events which we will continue to add to our website and socials in the coming weeks”.
The full programme of events can be found on LimerickPride.ie.
