To whom it may concern,
As Mayor of Limerick, the first mayor in the history of Ireland to be directly elected by voters, I write to confirm my whole-hearted support for the joint bid from Limerick and our neighbouring county Clare to host EuroPride.
As the first Irish mayor to serve for a committed multi-year term of five years, I have the privileged position of being able to not just offer good-wishes in 2025 but to know that in so doing I commit my support all the way through the planning phases right through to implementation and welcoming everyone to Shannonside.
To host such an event is always an honour and privilege but we do not present our credentials with our eyes closed to the logistical and planning challenges. This is not our first big-event. We’ve been there before and know we can manage all that is needed to be done well. Critically, every year, others know that too and place their trust in us for other large events. And, of course, our own Riverfest weekend in May, welcomes more than 100,000 visitors to our city every year.
But while winning this bid would mean the world for Limerick and help copper-fasten its image as a modern European city-region, I know from my own personal journey just how much more it would mean to the LGBTIQIA+ communities in Limerick and Clare.
As I look forward to 2028 and visualise the positive impact of such a vote of confidence in our region and beyond, I find myself firstly looking back.
I grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s in a Limerick convinced I would never really belong here. Ireland was a very different place then as was Limerick. Like so many others, I was burdened with the conflict of knowing that to find a place to live where I could truly be myself would likely mean leaving Ireland for a large city abroad and leaving family and friends behind. In the Limerick of my youth, there was not even a way for that teenager to discuss why he was unsure he couldn’t live his life openly in the world around him.
Slowly, across the last number of generations, we have built a new Limerick. We are, of course, proud of our traditions and our history steeped in community, industry, education and sport. There are many ways our past now shapes the future we are constructing.
But now living back home in Limerick, I know myself and my partner Damien can and do belong and can live our lives freely just as much as I ever felt in the streets of SOHO in London or Canal Street in Manchester, New York’s East and West Village, le Marais in Paris and Sydney.
But here living “freely” is different. Indeed, I might say a more comfortable sense of belonging, for me at least. It is more low-key. It feels natural and normal. It is more community driven. It comes from a strong sense of belonging to a place which wants a more inclusive future and one that as a result is braver, bolder and more colourful than ever before.
My own final worries about moving home were removed during a mayoral election campaign where my own decisions about my life never once presented as a campaign issue about which people cared. It was indeed with interest I watched Belfast media commentate on having the city’s first openly gay mayor while in Limerick the people just voted themselves for the same outcome. There was no story. It was just what happened. It was the non-event that made it all the more historical and impactful!
That is now the Limerick I am now proud to oversee as Mayor every single day. It is why I believe this is now exactly the environment in which to be celebrating EuroPride and the place to be celebrated too by Europride as a model city-region for Europe.
Hosting EuroPride in 2028, along with our near neighbours Clare, whose own similar path has mirrored that of Ireland as a whole, would be the next very welcome and natural step in that journey.
Our bid isn’t just about pride being visible for a weekend, or a week, or a month. It’s about being able to showcase to the world in our own understated way that members of our community no longer need to leave family and friends behind to move to big cities to feel like they belong. In today’s Europe, places like Limerick and Clare can be home, they can be safe for all and they can present innovative creative environments for all talents to thrive.
It’s about young and older LGBTQIA+ people in our unique interlocking urban and rural areas seeing themselves celebrated in their communities, on their streets and in their towns.
It’s about Ireland continuing to show what a better future can look like just as, when back in 2015, Ireland, including Limerick and Clare, became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote.
I shall never be able or want to forget the emotion and joy erupting in the yard of Dublin Castle as results beamed in from around the country including from my Limerick and Damien’s Donegal.
This bid for me is not just about what we can offer the EuroPride community or what it means for our businesses, but what it would mean to us – as individuals and collectively as a city and county.
To be able to harness that same feeling as in Dublin Castle, not just for our own local people but all who would visit from across Europe. We want them to be able to walk the same streets I do, with their head a little higher, their smiles a little wider and their expressions a little prouder.
As a political leader, I am only too aware how some of my counterparts even in Europe have chosen a different path in recent years. I know how important it is to continue to show those and others that there is a better way. It is why I am so privileged to be part of the journey Limerick is on, reflected in both my working life and in my personal life. But it is why I know leadership and support from my own office is so important to guarantee that for future generations.
I want Limerick’s journey to become the natural direction and I hope the jury will allow us the opportunity to show that to others with as we tell our story with open arms, open minds and open hearts.
I am sure there is more we can learn too. I now hope we will be trusted both to explain to Europe and the world what we know works for us and to learn from others what more we can do.
Every one of us have a story to tell. Mine is just one.
Yours in pride,
John A. Moran
Mayor of Limerick
