It’s Team Limerick Clean-Up time! Make this Good Friday a great Friday

THE EIGHTH Team Limerick Clean-Up (TLC) is ready for lift-off across the city and county this Good Friday

It is the largest one-day clean-up in Ireland with over 21,000 volunteers taking part and collecting 68 tonnes of litter last year,

This year, participants in TLC8 are encouraged to bring a friend and involve any new neighbours in the community to come along and join in, in making Limerick a cleaner and more environmentally friendly county. The popular tea and coffee gatherings after the clean-up will also be held at locations throughout the city and county.

The volunteers were from all walks of life ranging from schools, colleges, GAA clubs and Munster Rugby to businesses, charities, nursing homes and well-known faces locally.

Sponsored by the JP McManus Benevolent Fund and supported by Limerick City and County Council, TLC has seen over 400 tonnes of litter gathered from the streets by volunteers and event partner Mr. Binman since inception in 2015 – equating to over 14,500 household wheelie bins.

TLC ambassador, Paul O’Connell said it is a great chance for the communities involved to come together and develop a sense of pride in place.

“I would encourage everyone to invite new neighbours and people in their locality to join them in the clean-up and really develop this local community initiative,” said Paul, who is the final podcast guest on Team Limerick Clean-Up Talks To…

Additional study area for Limerick greenway

The mini podcast series has been created in conjunction with TLC’s media partner Limerick’s Live95 and is hosted by Nigel Dugdale. In the last episode, Paul discusses the importance of initiatives like TLC.

"Litter is a massive problem," he says and describes the decision to get involved in Team Limerick Clean-Up as being "the right thing to do".

"The city and the county get a clean-up in one day but also on top of that I hope kids learn some good habits as well. That’s the big thing.

"You want pride of place – that’s what we have to teach our kids. We have to teach them to be proud of where they come from. So that they look after it, so that they make the right decisions as they go through life," said the former Ireland and British and Irish Lions captain.

Speaking on his own childhood and pride of place in his home of Drombanna, Paul reminisces on how he, along with his brothers, "argued for the Commodore 64 but we never got it" and for that, he’s now thankful. He realises the importance of being out and about in your local community and that also gave him the space to focus on sport.

Now a Grand Slam winning coach, Paul also delves into the "nice sense of fulfilment" he gets from being on the coaching side of things, which is undeniably different from the "euphoric" sense of playing on the field.

When talking about his time playing for Munster, he describes the "unbelievable sense of purpose" he had and felt that he knew exactly what he was "put on earth for".

Touching on Ireland’s recent Grand Slam win, Paul says "we have the players capable of beating any team in the world".

Other guests in the podcast series include Limerick All-Star hurler Cian Lynch, TV and radio broadcaster, Louise Cantillon and 39th Macra na Feirme president Elaine Houlihan.

The Team Limerick Clean-Up Podcast series is available to stream on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the Live95 website.