Kieran Beville

  Denise Chaila The Limerick Voice Rewriting Irish Identity By Kieran Beville Denise Chaila has found her home in Limerick. She’s not just a performer here — she’s part of the place, its grit and poetry woven into her voice. When she walks into the light, she doesn’t need theatrics to command attention. She surveys the crowd with quiet confidence, lets a smile tug at her mouth and the room stills. She begins — and her voice moves like water, sometimes rushing, sometimes lapping gently, but always carrying you forward. From Zambia to the Shannon Chaila’s journey began far from the Irish midwest. Born in Chikankata-Mazabuka, Zambia, she spent her earliest years in a home steeped in education and community service. Her father, a neurological consultant, accepted a position in Dublin when she was just three. The move was seismic — not just geographically, but culturally. She remembers Ireland first through textures: the damp air, the soft greys of winter light, the singsong...

  Oasis Reunion Sparks Limerick Buzz   By Kieran Beville     For years, the idea of Liam and Noel Gallagher reuniting seemed as likely as a swan flying under Thomond Bridge backwards: two brothers better known for their blazing rows than brotherly love. Yet rock is built on unlikely comebacks. Oasis have reunited for a UK and Ireland tour, including two massive nights at Dublin’s Croke Park on the 16th and 17th of August. In Limerick, word of the comeback spread faster than a Shannon tide, stirring memories, debates, and plenty of craic among everyone from die-hard fans to sceptical students. Ticket prices started at €86.50 (before dynamic pricing) but judging by the local buzz, few seem put off. Whether you love or loathe them, the Gallagher brothers are about to remind Limerick – and the rest of Ireland – why Oasis was once the loudest, cockiest, and most talked-about band on the island. Brothers in Brawls The Gallagher brothers’ story is nearly as fa...

  Taxi for Elvis By Kieran Beville A fter my daughter’s graduation ceremony a few years ago in University College Cork I was invited to have refreshments in the Aula Maxima . That ‘Great Hall’ is a capacious and impressive room with gilt-framed portraits of past presidents of the college adorning its wood-panelled, high walls. It was the first time I had been in that chamber since I sat exams many years before. I remembered those stern faces peering out of the past and the equally austere countenances of those supervising the tests. I was glad to be beyond that phase of my life. Proud parents and joyful graduates were gathered in huddles around tables where steaming teas and coffees were being served. It was the last day of November. There were plates of biscuits strategically located throughout the room. I reached for a Bourbon Cream and smiled broadly. I haven’t had one of these for years, I thought as I dunked the biscuit into my tea. I was transporte...

  The Liberator in Limerick Daniel O’Connell’s Local Power – National Impact By Kieran Beville Two hundred and fifty years ago (6 th August, 1775) a child was born in the rugged beauty of Cahersiveen, County Kerry, whose voice would one day shake the British Empire and inspire millions across the world. That child was Daniel O’Connell, affectionately and enduringly known as The Liberator—a title earned not by the sword but by the sheer power of oratory, conviction, and political brilliance. In a land broken by colonization, sectarian rule, and the bitter legacy of the Penal Laws, O'Connell emerged not as a warrior, but as a strategist—a legal eagle, a democratic firebrand, a man whose weapon was the word and whose battlefield was the mind of the public. Today, we celebrate not only his birth, but the legacy of a man who redefined what peaceful resistance could achieve. Limerick provided O’Connell with what every mass movement needs: engaged citizens, organizational mu...

  Maeve Kelly The Radical Heart of Irish Feminism By Kieran Beville Maeve Kelly, author and founder of Adapt House in Limerick has died at the age of 95. In the broad, often shadowed tapestry of 20th-century Irish social history, few figures shine with the quiet, enduring light of Maeve Kelly. A woman of contradictions — nurse and novelist, mother and agitator, poet and shelter-founder — she lived 95 remarkable years that reshaped not only how Ireland cared for its most vulnerable women, but how those women were seen, heard, and remembered. Maeve Kelly died on August 1, 2025, in Limerick. But her life’s work — in words and in deeds — continues to ripple outward like the echo of a bell whose ringing changed the silence around it. The Making of a Maverick Born in Ennis, County Clare, in 1930, Maeve Kelly came of age in a conservative, insular Ireland. Raised partly in Dundalk, her early life bore the familiar marks of mid-century Irish girlhood: modest expectations, rel...