RIVERFEST, Limerick Council’s flagship summer festival, has seen the spend quadruple in bars and cocktail bars across the city and county over the May Bank Holiday weekend annually, according to new data.
Speaking at the recent Metropolitan District meeting, the Council’s Head of Economic and Tourism Development, Brendan Troy, told Council members of figures procured by Mastercard around spending in all local authorities.
Mr Troy pointed out that the findings indicated a noticeable spike in spending over the Riverfest weekend in recent years, showing a “significant” return for local businesses.
Mastercard’s findings showed that the festival weekend is by far the busiest weekend of the year for publicans in the city and county alike, with their sales multiplying fourfold.
“We looked at bars and cocktail bars for three years, across each weekend in April and May, and you can see the spike on the fourth of May in 2025. We don’t have 2026 data yet, but it’s the same on the previous weekend in 2024 and in 2023,” Mr Troy explained.
“In terms of spending in bars and cocktail bars, across the whole county, it’s not just the city, you can see that there’s a significant impact. You can look at May last year, and on the Sunday the investment quadruples for bars and cocktails bars compared to any other Sunday in the year,” he revealed.
Fine Gael councillor Sarah Kiely thanked the Council’s Nighttime Economy team for their hard-work over the Riverfest weekend, as well as making themselves available to deal with any issues.
Social Democrats councillor Elisa O’Donovan said that the May festival is her favourite weekend of the year with 2026 seeing “such a buzz” in the city centre.
“I really enjoyed it, it was first-class,” Cllr O’Donovan enthused.
Cllr Shane Hickey-O’Mara (SD) said he had enjoyed the festival this year more than he had “in quite a while”.