WHAT’S another year, as Johnny might say. What sweet delights does 2026 have in store for us at Merchant’s Quay?
It hardly bares thinking about. Will King John finally get his merry men in line? Will it be off with their heads, or perhaps, his?
Will his lordship up sticks, leave them all to it, and see out his reign of terror at his proposed Limerick White House on O’Curry Street? Or will The Sailor’s Home now be turned into the Treaty City’s fictitious answer to Costa del Kilkee and John Moran our very own Man From Atlantis?
Not if Limerick’s arty-farties have anything to do with it, let me tell you.
Could this be the year that the blackguards in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael finally make peace with his reverence after a very bumpy start? Will they bury the hatchet, and can they do that without causing life-threatening injuries?
New year, new beginning and all that. Could they not all just kiss and make up?
Well, in the last weeks of 2025, I got the sense, to be honest, that the rift between Council executive and Mayor has only deepened. There was a definite hum of unrest the last time they were all in the same room together at a public meeting.
An auld whiff of teed off civil servants!
And a stronger whiff than per usual.
Listen, something is definitely rotten in the state of Limerick City and How’s Your Father. Shur, tell me something I didn’t know, says you! I know, I know, shur, they are a right bunch of luthers, altogether. They’re only happy when they are quibbling with one and other.
I mean, the big boys in Dublin have told the wee councillors to cop themselves on and start playing fair, but they are a law unto themselves. Who knows what 2026 will have in store for us?
After doing away with Christmas in 2025, despite all the talk of pulling out all the stops in the eleventh hour, will Paddy’s Day be next? Will we line out on O’Connell Street on March 17 to watch the tumbleweed blow down our main thoroughfare with great fanfare?
One thing is certain, there will be rows and rows aplenty. I can’t see mediation sorting this lot out, if anything it will probably make things worse. The writing was on the wall from day one. This was only ever going one way – a one way to catastrophe!
Brace yourselves, it might be an interest year.
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme