Drama, sculpture and poetry in the Lime Tree theatre in Limerick

Detail from the sculpture in the foyer of the Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

During the weekend, I was at the Lime Tree Theatre in Limerick for a performance of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit by the College Players.

This is a state-of-the-art 510 seat theatre, on the campus of Mary Immaculate College, close to Limerick city centre. It opened six years ago, in October 2012, and it has become the venue for a wide range of performances, including theatre, music, comedy, traditional arts, schools’ performances and conferences.

The Lime Tree Theatre is on the rapidly expanding campus of Mary Immaculate College, which offers a wide range of programmes in Education and the Liberal Arts, with over 3,000 students.

The Theatre Director is Louise Donlon, who has extensive experience in the Irish arts sector, with Island Theatre Company (Limerick), Druid Theatre Company (Galway) and the Dunamaise Arts Centre (Portlaoise). She is a former member of the Arts Council.

Beside the ticket office, looking out on the campus and the lime tree that gives the theatre its name, a large wooden sculpture seem to have been inspired by ‘The Scribe,’ an anonymous early Irish proem translated by Kuno Meyer:

The Scribe:

A hedge of trees surrounds me,
A blackbird’s lay sings to me;
Above my lined booklet
The trilling birds chant to me.
In a grey mantle from the top of bushes
The cuckoo sings:
Verily – may the Lord shield me! –
Well do I write under the greenwood.

The sculpture in the foyer of the Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)