Is limerick really THIS bad?

Iang87

Limerick is this bad did you see the prices they're charging to unlock phonesits madness :eek:

Mr E

I'm going to leave this open for a while.

Paul, obviously you've had a bad experience (or 10), but I've been living here for nearly 20 years without incident. Every town has its rough spots, its just a fact of life. If you look at the Tipperary forum, you'll see more of the same.

tomcollins97

So Many Shoes wrote: »

Its like IrishGooner83 said Dublin has its fair share of killings but never the same amount of hype. I was listening to the news this morning and it said that a body was found from a gangland shooting, that was at 8 o clock. I didn't hear anything about it in the news at 4?? But if that was about Limerick it would be breaking news every half hour....

Dublin has a population of about 1,661,185 so the odd killing doesn't have the same impact as in Limerick which has a population of 90,000 (source: Wikipedia)

From the CSO in 2007:
" Incidents recorded of Murder/Manslaughter/Infanticide (ICCS 011), incidents per 100,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
31 incidents
2.46 per 100,000 population

Limerick
7 incidents
3.60 per 100,000 population

Interestingly Tipperary is 4.43 per 100,000 in 2007 so Limerick isn't the worst!

If anyone is interested have a look at the CSO website

tomcollins97

Article:http://www.independent.ie/national-news/limerick-is-now-the-official-murder-capital-of-europe-1353369.html

Limerick has a ratio of over seven homicides per 100,000 population, according to CSO data, while Glasgow recorded just over five killings per 100,000 of its population.

Gardai are seizing an average of 500 firearms a year in Ireland -- 10 times more guns than they were seizing from republicans and criminals during the Troubles.

The minister also revealed last Thursday that since the garda's Operation Anvil was set up in May 2005 to target criminals gangs, their guns and drugs, gardai have seized a total of 1,491 firearms. The bulk, some 857, were uncovered in Dublin and a large portion of the remaining 634 weapons were seized in Limerick.

Liam Byrne

Tom Collins - why are you dragging up an "article" that's over a year old ?

Fixed that for you:

tomcollins97 wrote: »

Article from around this time last year, will be interesting to see if it's improved this time around, and if the Indo will give it as much prominence :http://www.independent.ie/national-news/limerick-is-now-the-official-murder-capital-of-europe-1353369.html

They trotted out that headline slur a year or two ago in the Sindo, with all of the caveats, twists and assumptions required to reach that supposed conclusion buried deep within the article.

And it was discussed on boards at the time.

And why put in a title implying that it's current ? Even assuming all their crap was true, and that Limerick had passed out Glasgow last year, has Glasgow or Dublin passed it out this year ?

Basically, the only way I'd see a city as dangerous or as a "murder capital" is if the general public going about their business were in serious danger, which they're not.

And even if we give them the thrill of their sensational headline, and ignore the fact that you're safer here than most places, I'd still like to see the actual stats, rather than just a headline, so that I could point out the obvious holes in their stance - like I did last year:

Liam Byrne wrote:

Callan in Co. Kilkenny has a population of 1,000 people, and there was 1 murder there this [now last] year.....that's a murder rate of 100 per 100,000 people, which is a fair bit higher than Limerick's 7 in 100,000, no ?

Any crap, lazy or biased reporter can print pretty much anything based on "statistics"; it takes a proper, clear-headed journalist to make a story, and a decent editor to apply an attention-grabbing headline that can be backed up, without resorting to tabloidesque.

Anyways, if that's what Tom Collins is resorting to, I'm off to find an article from 1916 or something so that I can post here with a headline "there's NOW thousands of deaths in Dublin"........ :rolleyes:

Oh, and without wanting to put a slur on Glasgow*, since most of the stats could be simplistic there too, but if you do a search for "murder capital europe", you will find mentions of Glasgow running from 2003 - 2007; even allowing for the anomalous blip of gang members shooting each other (and themselves), Limerick isn't anywhere near that level of consistency....

*Final comment re stats : In 2006, despite being the "murder capital" of Europe, Glasgow was SIMULTANEOUSLY voted the "safest British city"..... go figure!

Paulegend

ah in fairness doh there is alot of good here 2. ive def had a few bad experiences but tbh i dont consider myself to have had a bad run in this town. i just gotta stop logging on after the pub:) anywho i suppose it seems from looking at the other county forums MR E your right its seems to be a widespread thing.

a question. is our societies failings a product of our economy?

80's resesion had alot of extreme anti social behaviour(i say extreme as in break ins, stealing, violent behaviour. where just anti social behaviour would be cursing at old ladies and grafiti)

in the 90s and til now be had the boom. it seemed more the gang land fueds and drugs(in every city)

and now its back to the 80s style extreme anti social behaviour.

it just seems when money is available some people run havoc causing the caos with drugs prostitution and basically just trying to get more money. but when money doesnt seem to be available the drugs and prostitution dont play a huge part. it just seems that the gangs are only at war now for total control of a small market(which would also be the case when it comes to high street store). i guess my point is that it doesnt seem to matter whether money is there or not bar the fact its a different type of crime we are dealing with. as somebody on another tread said this resesion is a worldwide thing. so there must be other cities experiencing similar crime?

when they built the skate park in town they sent a guy to different places in europe to study other skate parks and how they are run. which is a good idea. but why not send some people involved in law and policing to other parts of the world and see how they tackle certain crime? im sure it could help...

o and guys there is a documovie out called "the obama deception". its really good even if i dont believe in some of the things they say but they do just state the facts.

Karmafaerie

talkingclock wrote: »

Because it has a certain history regarding gangland feuds?
Because LIM is just a wee bit smaller then the capital?

But i'm not going into a statistics debate here again!!!

In the two and a half years of "the fued" there were something like 6 murders.:rolleyes:

There's an amazing thing called perspective.

Karmafaerie

TomCollins, you shouldn't post anything resembaling facts here.
It makes certain posters cry!

And as for the ones you posted, it was proven that they were taking the population of Limerick garda district (more than 200,000) and comparing it to Limericks city population (Some 50,000) to skew the figures.

The fact remains that half of the murders every year in the republic, are within the Dublin metropolitan area.
That has a population of some 450,000.
So the country has a population of some 4,500,000, and 1/2 of the murders are carried out in an area with 1/10 of the population.

Dublin metropolitan areas have 2 1/2 times the headline crimes (murder/armed robbery/GBH etc) than Limerick, but like I said.
Some people here think that the facts aren't important!:rolleyes:

seachto7

ah, it's brutal. You're taking your life in your hands if you go outside. Terrible. I've had my car robbed 4 times, only been threatened with a knife 10 times, been shot at, but it was just pellets lol, had a one night stand with a traveller. Terrible. I much prefer hanging around O Connell street in Dublin watching the junkies skip around moving cars...

awkward

Looks like someone on this forum has a business idea with this latest gangland killing spree...:D

Mc Love

Paulegend wrote: »

all because when asked the neighbours said "we didnt see who did it!!!" it was south hill i know who did it! i was the kid beaten to a bloody pulp

just because some1 doesnt wanna be a "rat" dont make it better!!!!

THAT IS LIMERICK

say wat ever u want but LIMERICK can go to hell

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but i would think most people would expect that behaviour from a certain type of area, within the city limits.

Paul, can i ask you if you said who did it, when the gardai asked you who did it? and what happened?

Cateym

IrishGooner83 wrote: »

Ahh, Like everywhere course it has some pretty ad areas... They all happen to be within walking disance to the city centre so it sometimes appears a lot worse than it can be.... Typically unless your unlucky (which unfortunately does happen too), you wont find trouble unless your looking for it...


To put it in perspective. Dublin has had 11 gangland shootings in the last 12 weeks.... Where's the media bandwagon coverage for this?

Would be 24/7 news if anything of this scale happened in Limerick!

Check this out http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/four-arrested-in-limerick-following-shooting-1693176.html

Once you read the article it becomes clear the shooting happened in Tipperary, the yobs arrested in Limerick! I am sick of the media circus that is destroying Limerick's reputation.

Liam Byrne

Are you surprised, Cateym ? I remember a story where a bunch of thugs down from Dublin went on a robbing spree in Ennis and Clare....

The news reported that they were last seen heading "in the direction of Limerick".

Karl Spain, to be fair to him, incorporated it into his comedy act so that people could laugh at the irony and maybe it might click with them how the stories were - shall we say - "massaged".

jonski

seachto7 wrote: »

had a one night stand with a traveller.

You thought she was a nurse , she said she was one of the ward sisters .




I'll get my coat .

Karmafaerie

Sure remember the media circus coming out claiming that the Baiba Saulite murder was Limerick related?:rolleyes:

Mc Love

Sure Obama Bin Laden is from Limerick!

Liam Byrne

sparkysrovers wrote: »

Sure Obama Bin Laden is from Limerick!

You're mixing him up with his cousin......Mister Bin Man.....

talkingclock

on the one hand if a limerick man commits murder in dublin then it has nothing to do with limerick
not good for limerick.

the other hand people (all over irleland including limerick) dragging out someones grandmother's 7th cousin's 3rd sister to claim that barack obama is irish (remember that absolutely moronic "there's no one as irish as barack obama"??)
good for ireland.

just as you need it...

tomcollins97

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Any crap, lazy or biased reporter can print pretty much anything based on "statistics"; it takes a proper, clear-headed journalist to make a story, and a decent editor to apply an attention-grabbing headline that can be backed up, without resorting to tabloidesque.

[/i]

...which is why I suggested in an earlier post that you check out the CSO website for the 07 stats, which are the most recent. These don't exaclty show Limerick to be any safer than Irelands most populated city.

Some intereting ones:

According to CSO in 2007
Dublin met population: 1,259,381
Limerick population: 194,363

"Incidents recorded of Firearms Offences (ICCS 112), incidents per 1,000 , 2007"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
291 incidents or 0.23 per 1,000 population

Limerick
139 incodents or 0.72 per 1,000 population

"Incidents recorded of Arson (ICCS 1211), incidents per 1,000 population, , 2007"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
525 incidents or 0.42 per 1,000 population

Limerick
204 incodents or 1.05 per 1,000 population

" Incidents recorded of Liquor Licencing Offences (NEC) (ICCS 133), incidents per 1,000 population,"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
559 incidents or 0.44 per 1,000 population

Limerick
236 incidents or 1.21 per 1,000 population

"Incidents recorded of Murder/Manslaughter/Infanticide (ICCS 011), incidents per 100,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
31 incidents or 2.46 per 1,000 population

Limerick
7 incidents or 3.6 per 1,000 population

"Incidents recorded of Dangerous driving leading to death (ICCS 012), incidents per 100,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
6 incidents or 0.48 per 1,000 population

Limerick
2 incidents or 1.03 per 1,000 population

" Incidents recorded of Rape of a male or female (ICCS 0211), incidents per 100,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
114 incidents or 9.05 per 1,000 population

Limerick
28 incidents or 10.80 per 1,000 population

" Incidents recorded of Defilement of a boy or girl less than 17 years old (ICCS 0212), incidents per 100,000 population"


Dublin Metropolitan Region
12 incidents or 0.95 per 1,000 population

Limerick
3 incidents or 1.54 per 1,000 population

" Incidents recorded of Sexual assault (not aggravated) (ICCS 0215), incidents per 100,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
252 incidents or 20.01 per 1,000 population

Limerick
57 incidents or 29.33 per 1,000 population

"Incidents recorded of Murder-threat (ICCS 0312), incidents per 1,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
69 incidents or 0.05 per 1,000 population

Limerick
44 incidents or 10.23 per 1,000 population

" Incidents recorded of Driving/In charge of a vehicle under the influence of drugs (ICCS 0413), incidents per 1,000 population"

Dublin Metropolitan Region
53 incidents or 0.04 per 1,000 population

Limerick
21 incidents or 0.11 per 1,000 population

bullets

Liam Byrne wrote: »

You're mixing him up with his cousin......Mister Bin Man.....

I sometimes wonder who is worse


~B

Karmafaerie

tomcollins97 wrote: »

Limerick population: 194,363


"Incidents recorded of Murder/Manslaughter/Infanticide (ICCS 011), incidents per 100,000 population"

Limerick
7 incidents or 3.6 per 1,000 population

Ahhhmmmm!!!!


Wanna try again?
Last time I checked there wasn't more than 700 murders in Limerick in 2007.

Liam Byrne

tomcollins97 wrote: »

...which is why I suggested in an earlier post that you check out the CSO website for the 07 stats, which are the most recent. These don't exaclty show Limerick to be any safer than Irelands most populated city.

Bull****. You not only linked to a year-old newspaper article, but you also added a headline to the post (which most people don't) implying that the stats were current.

Define "safer" ? As stated earlier:

Callan : 1 murder in 1,000
From today's paper : Daingean 1 murder/manslaughter per 1,000

With that bare statistic, both look a LOT worse than either Dublin or Limerick.

The FACT is that hidden within those stats if you weren't involved in a gang or selling drugs you would be a MILLION times safer in either Dublin or Limerick than either of the cities' stats appear to imply.

But - like I said - newspapers don't publish stories like "Law-abiding citizens and non-drug dealers safer in Limerick/Cork/Galway"

100% proof of my point is, like I said, Glasgow was SIMULTANEOUSLY "Europe's Murder Capital" and "Britain's Safest City"; so Limerick could well be "Ireland's Safest City" regardless of the Indo article you referred to.

Obviously, there's more to safety than murder figures and stats; and like I said there's a lot more if you're not a gang-member, drug-dealer or criminal.

Your slur failed miserably, so now you've gone looking for other stats; admit it.

If that had been an article about, say, 1980s South Africa, and the stats showed that 1000 black people had been attacked or murdered out of say 100,000 people, but no white people had been murdered, would you have just looked at the 1% statistic and deduced that everyone was in danger ?

Limerick - like most cities - has some problems; and is admittedly worse than some places.

But the FACT is that it's nowhere near what you and the Dublin-based media choose to imply.

Liam Byrne

Karmafaerie wrote: »

Ahhhmmmm!!!!


Wanna try again?
Last time I checked there wasn't more than 700 murders in Limerick in 2007.

We'll leave that one slide, Karma - there probably wasn't 3,100 murders in Dublin that year either.....

Time to quote Marvin, methinks :

"People say believe half of what you read, son, and none of what you hear"

Sabre0001

Certain areas are bad...But then again if you actually read the threads - the shooting...was done to himself. The stabbing...also done to himself. So apparently we have criminals, but they're not the smartest.

Karmafaerie

No worries Liam.

I will point out however, that with a population of 183,360 in the county, and 7 murders in Limerick in 2007, that leaves Limerick with a murder per thousand ratio of 0.00381762

The Irish Murder rate for 2007 was 0.00946215 per 1,000 people.

Karmafaerie

And if you want to look into it a bit more Tom.

Dublin murder rate is one of Europe's highest

MURDER rates in Dublin are now the sixth highest in Europe.

Only five other European capitals have higher homicide levels in the latest United Nations league table.

Dublin comes four places ahead of London, which ranks 10th in the list.

And according to the figures, Ireland as a whole is 10th in Europe, with a worse record for violent deaths than England and Wales.

In Ireland and Britain, only Glasgow comes ahead of Dublin -- in fifth place. Latvian capital Riga was number one on the list.


HIGHER

The figures show Ireland has a significantly higher murder rate than most European countries, including those with a large organised crime problem, such as Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

By far the highest homicide levels are in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The figures are featured in the annual crime trends survey of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The statistics cover the years 2005 and 2006.

A total of 78 countries around the world were surveyed for the report, which featured a breakdown of the largest cities in 29 European countries.

Homicide definitions vary across Europe and in Ireland, it includes both murder and manslaughter.

Ranking in the survey is established by the number of homicides per 100,000 of the population.

In 2005, there were 65 homicides in Ireland, with 67 the following year. By comparison, there were 755 murders in England and Wales, 109 in Scotland and 23 in Northern Ireland.

The Republic had 1.59 murders per 100,000 people, while England and Wales had 1.41 and Northern Ireland had 1.33, making it 13th on the list.

Lithuania had a rate of 8.13, while Scotland and Finland both had 2.13.

The world's highest murder rate is in the South American state of El Salvador, where there were 58.07 homicides per 100,000 people in 2006.

The US had a rate of 5.62.


LEAGUE

In terms of cities, Dublin's 3.02 rate compares with 2.25 in London, 5.34 in Glasgow, 3.37 in Belfast, and 7.56 in Riga.

European capitals with a much lower murder rate than Dublin included Rome at 0.96, Prague at 1.69, Madrid (1.18) and Berlin (1.47).

Ireland's placing on the league table could rise next year, when the 2007 figures are set against other countries.

Last year, there were 84 homicides in Ireland, including six incidences of manslaughter.

The 2008 figures which have not yet been complied are expected to show a significant drop in the number of homicides.

And this was well, well, before the string of seemingly non-stop murders in Dublin this year.

What annoys me almost as much as the derogitory muck that's printed about Limerick, is the attitude you get off some people of "forget about how bad things are in Dublin, that doesn't matter".

Fair enough, but when it's the mainly Dublin based media that's leading a slur campaign against Limerick, then how is it wrong to return the favour so to speak?!

/rant

petergfiffin

I'm from Limerick originally but living in Dublin and one thing I've noticed (and when ever my friends and family notice when they come to Dublin) is there seems to be far more Guards on the ground in Dublin than in Limerick, I don't mean special units but your everyday "boys in blue". Another thing I've noticed is that the scumbags in Limerick seem to be given far more of a free run than up here, it's not that there's less in Dublin, just that they seem to be kept more under control by the powers that be, maybe it's just a matter of how different Guards in different districts operate.

I definitely think Limerick has been given a rough ride by the press down the years which is why Limerick people are (understandably) touchy when people start having a go. An example of this is the term "Stab City" which was given by the press following a spate of stabbings yet you didn't see "Junkie Town" applied to areas of Dublin that saw a huge rise in drug abuse. I also remember one day when there was 2 stabbings, 1 in Limerick and 1 in Tallaght, the one in Limerick was on national radio but the Tallaght one was only on the Dublin stations.

I think Limerick definitely has problems with Anti Social Behaviour (or scumbags as they're better described) and serious crime but I think the posts where people have shown what can only be described as delight when these guys get what they deserve is a sign of just how sick Limerick people are the damage they do to Limerick's reputation.

If you want to know what Limerick is really like look back to the fantastic scenes of the Heineken cups when there were tens of thousands on the street and no trouble and that'll give you a better picture of what Limerick is all about.

Liam Byrne

petergfiffin wrote: »

I also remember one day when there was 2 stabbings, 1 in Limerick and 1 in Tallaght, the one in Limerick was on national radio but the Tallaght one was only on the Dublin stations.

Perfect first-hand example of obvious bias. Thank you Peter, as those that bull**** that there is no bias can now no longer dispute it.

And of course, if it HAD made national news it would have been "Tallaght", and not Dublin, while the Limerick one would not have mentioned the suburb at all, leading people to believe that it was the main street of the city that was somehow dangerous.

:rolleyes:

old boy

sparkysrovers wrote: »

Sure Obama Bin Laden is from Limerick!

i know a guy that kinda looks like bin laden, he takes pride in it, he even answers to bin laden some people do not even know his birth name, only his knick name.

lg123

indenial wrote: »

I spent 5 years in Limerick and it was my first city ever living in. There are some amount of knackers just walking around the city. I thought this was the norm until I went to Cork, Galway and Dublin. For some reason there is a rougher element in Limerick than other city's.

In saying all that, I only ever got hassle there once when a knacker walked up to me in Burger King demanding money off me or his buddies would beat me up outside. When I told him he was getting nothing off me he just moved on to the next people.

Wouldn't advise anyone to hang around supermacs on a Saturday night.

i'm of a similar opinion to this poster, i havnt had a bad experience yet but there is an unreal amount of scumbags around compared to similar sized cities such as galway or cork.