Richard Harris
He was an absolute miracle for this city. My memory of him, without any ambiguity, is of him as a huge, powerful man who always stood out. He stood out on the rugby field. He stood out in a group of men and women talking on the street. A lot of people don't know it, but he also wrote a serious amount of poetry from as young as seven or eight years of age. He was determined, from the amount of films he watched, that he was going to be a film star. When he became one he was determined to be one of the greatest in the world. That's what he did, and he brought his city with him.

The White House Pub
You have to consider what the place has done for Limerick via a discipline called poetry which, damn it, isn't the easiest thing to sell. I think I'm into my 243rd consecutive week of reading poetry there this week. It's without a television too. When I come to meet someone for a coffee or a chat, or a beer in the evening, we're not dominated by the brutality of noise that comes from a television.

The City Centre Strategy
What it's trying to create is a walk along the riverbank. I think the new strategy that the architects and planners have adopted is extremely commendable. They're tying that in with the old Georgian background, and now we have people coming in and developing a modern city that is complimenting what's there already. Cork, by tradition, has always been looking towards the river, because they're so close to it. They're built on a swamp. Now, we're beginning to do the same.

Cosmopolitan Limerick
One of the things I love about Limerick today is that it is not what it used to be. Fifty or 60 years ago this city was a city dominated by priests and bishops; mortal sins and venial ones too. It was dominated by complete inhibition - censorship of novels and poetry. A city of millers and ranks. Today we are cosmopolitan and international. It's got up off its feet. Desmond O'Grady has got it off its feet. Terry Wogan has made his contribution; Frank McCourt, Jack Donovan, Tom Greaney, Celia Holman Lee, Una Heaton, Angela Woulfe - they've all gone into the world and brought their home city with them.

Niall McInerney
He's something of an unknown quantity, but he's been the Jesus of fashion photographers for the past 35 years, held in the highest esteem by fashion models all over the world. Niall started in Milan, before going to London and New York, going all over the world following the fashion trail and capturing first what men and women would find themselves wearing on the streets of Limerick.

Craftsmanship
I started off making watch straps and women's belts, which I incidentally sold to Celia Holman Lee some years ago. I was fascinated by the quality and colour of Irish leather being made in Portlaw, Carrick-on-Suir. I felt it should be used for artistic reasons, and created the product of leather applique with coats of arms and medieval illuminations from the Book of Kells and the Qu'ran. I remember that in 1979 when Pope John Paul II came to Ireland I was invited by the Catholic hierarchy, despite my rather derogatory views on religion, to put symbols of the four Evangelists and the Papal coat of arms in leather applique in the vestry of Knock Shrine.