The Strand Hotel, Limerick

The Strand Hotel is situated on the Ennis Road in Limerick City.
The reason I have chosen to write a blog on this particular hotel is not because of it's beautiful view of the River Shannon or it's comfortable beds, but simply because of my personal experience in the hotel. If the songs "Glad You Came" and "All Time Low" sound some bit familiar to you, then you should have heard of an amazing pop band called "The Wanted".

In June 2011, I heard about a competition giving lucky winners a chance to meet the well-known band.
I decided to enter for the "craic" not knowing what lay ahead. I'm the kind of person that wouldn't win an argument but I enter these things anyway, hoping for the best. "Positive Outcomes Only", that's my motto. It was a simple competition, no hard questions or anything. Limerick's favourite radio station SPIN South West asked "if you could meet the wanted, what one question would you ask them?" So with a little help from my mother, I text in "if you weren't famous where would you be?"
About ten minutes later I received a phone call telling me I had won! I couldn't believe my ears! They told me that a friend and I would be brought to a private location by a private coach. I was so excited that I actually cried, just a few tears though, nothing major.

On the day we obviously realised when we reached the location that it was in fact Limerick Strand Hotel

It was a great opportunity to have met the five lovely boys and I still thank SPIN to this day!

Meeting "The Wanted" has made me love them even more as they are friendly and genuine. I will continue to listen to their music and support them throughout their career.

This is their newest song, "Lightning". Have a listen! They're brilliant.

Orla O'Connell, 11113111

Jerry O'Deas Bar

The place in which I have chosen to write my assignment on is 'Jerry O'Dea' bar situated in Mulgrave Street Limerick City. It's a local bar across from the Limerick Senior Collage of Further Education. Although this is only a small pub this means it's close to all the local student accommodation attracting many teenagers and students from the surrounding area. I first heard about the pub over Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jerry-O-Deas/110759419004234?ref=ts as one of my friends liked the Facebook page of the pub and was telling me of a night out they had there one night before heading out. Before heading out to the local nightclubs the week after my friend had told me about the bar me and my friends from the University of Limerick and Limerick Senior went for a drink in Jerry O'Deas Bar.

 We had a few pints and some great crack in the pub and we all enjoyed it so we ended up making it our favourite place for pre-drinks before hitting the nightclubs in the city. As I don't know many places around Limerick when I got the assignment I felt this was the perfect place to write my assignment on.

 Before heading to get a few pictures at the bar I looked it up on Google to see if there was a web page and straight away I found a page with the address and directions to the pub on RateMyArea.com http://limerick.ratemyarea.com/places/jerry-o-dea-bar-126350 When I got to the bar I took some pictures outside the bar and then went inside and took pictures in the bar. In the process of taking the pictures I sat down ordered a pint and had a conversation with the bartender/owner Jerry himself. He was very friendly and when he found I was from Kerry told me a very funny story about something that had happened in the bar a while back. A Kerry man and some of his friends came into the bar to watch the All-Ireland final Kerry verses Dublin. He said the lads were very confident the Kerry boys would take the match and through the match they got talking to some Dublin and Limerick men. The Kerry man was so confident in The Kingdom that he offered to buy the next round of drink for the Dublin and Limerick boys if Kerry lost. Low and behold Kerry lost and the distraught and the fairly annoyed Kerry man had to buy the whole crowd a round of drink soon after he had to leave for the bank as he'd no money left. Jerry said he got some laugh out of the whole episode. After talking to Jerry and having a pint with him in the bar i was proud to have written about Jerry O'Deas bar in Limerick City.

Apologises for the poor photo quality.