university limerick tour

• Campus Tour

The University of Limerick is set on 340 acres of land, making it one of the largest universities in the country. The river Shannon flows through the campus, dividing the campus in two and it is linked up via  The Living Bridge  which is the longest pedestrian bridge in the country.

To get a tour around the campus, check out the series of videos below. 

*This series features the 2020 UL Student Officers.

In this section

• Info & Services
• Student Officers
• Support and Advice

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Welcome to the University of Limerick Visitor Centre

Campus Tours available: email [email protected] to check availability

Welcome to the University of Limerick. Set on a magnificent riverside campus of more than 130 hectares centred on the majestic River Shannon. With over 13,000 students and 1,300 staff the University of Limerick has a host of world class facilities and places of interest that will make you campus visit one to remember.

The first location to call on is The Visitor Centre is located in the Student Courtyard. Staff here will provide a warm welcome to the University and introduce the visitor to information displays on both the campus facilities and events guides outlining what’s on at that time on campus. A short informative video gives an overview of the university. Visitors may also purchase university branded merchandise along with an attractive selection of local craft items many of which are now available at our online store.

The University of Limerick has superb cultural and sporting facilities which are also enjoyed by the local community, and contribute to creating a truly ‘open campus’. The visual arts are strongly represented by a variety of outdoor sculptures and several painting collections, including the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland and The Water Colour Society of Ireland National Collection. The Bourn Vincent Gallery hosts temporary exhibitions. The Irish Chamber Orchestra Studio is located on the campus and it performs a series of concerts each year in the University Concert Hall. UL Sport with its outstanding facilities caters for sports enthusiasts from the beginner to the elite athlete, including Munster Rugby team members. In addition to the splendid facilities of the Arena and outdoor pitches and track, the campus itself makes a wonderful location for walking and running.

The grounds in which the university is situated are exceptional. Particular attention has always been paid to the design and development of the university campus, based on Physical Development Plans which respond to the strategic needs of the University. The extensive parkland was part of the lands surrounding Plassey House which were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. At that period in landscape history, the fashion was for sweeping lawns with strategically placed groups of trees dotted around the lawns and bounded by woodland. It was also popular to have a selection of exotic trees in demesnes. Plassey has some lovely specimens today from that period. The campus has been further enhanced by additional planting of both native and exotic trees by the university while each new building is enhanced by suitable planting. The University was ranked 16th in the world in 2015 in the Green Metric Ranking of World Universities for its achievements in working towards campus sustainability and in managing the university in an environmentally friendly manner. The resulting campus is an amenity not only for staff and students to enjoy but also for the wider community who make regular use of its wonderful facilities.

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University of Limerick

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Our strategic mission-orientated challenges Our research addresses global challenges including affordable and clean energy, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, equality, diversity and inclusion as well as public health.

At the very core of UL is an instinctive drive to create knowledge for a better world. It is this orientation which leads us naturally to align ourselves to the UN Sustainable Development Goal.

People – our catalysts for change We are focused on talent with an exemplary record in attracting and nurturing world-leading researchers with success in national and EU programmes.

Our strategic emphasis on prestigious training grants such as Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowships has resulted in a high success rate with a total of 88 Marie Curie Fellows funded here since 2014.

UL is home to European Research Council award holders at all levels across disciplines of psychology, chemistry, bioscience, with applications in energy, society and public health .

Story: Researchers at UL have developed a new material that has the ability to capture toxic chemicals from the air .

University of Limerick (UL) has led the way as the most student focussed campus in Ireland and the result has been student facilities that are first and, in some cases, the only available in Ireland and indeed the world. Over 18,000 students are on campus, including more than 3,300 international students from 100+ countries.

UL offers more than 50 undergraduate programmes and over 200 postgraduate programmes across 4 faculties, several which are unique in Ireland.

There are more than 69 Clubs & Societies at UL, maximising the opportunity for students to meet friends and to feel at home. UL offers a vibrant social scene, with on-campus outdoor music events, college bars and The University Concert Hall, that hosts some of the biggest names in music and comedy.

There are 6 on campus student villages that provide students with a safe living environment, and multiple off-campus villages for student accommodation, nearby. 

UL has the highest ranking of all Irish third level institutions for Student Experience (source: Good University Guide 2022).

Best in Ireland for Graduate Employability

• The University offers a hands-on approach to learning, which is complimented by UL’s award-winning Co-operative Education (co-op) programme. This is a key factor in our employment rate being consistently higher than the HEA national average figure.
• UL was the first and remains the leading university for Cooperative Education.  The largest of its kind in the EU, UL’s programme places over 2,200 students annually in work placements within a global network of over 25 countries.
• UL Graduates earn more than those from any other Irish university, outside Dublin (source: HEA 2021).
• UL brings more employers onto campus than any other Irish 3rd level institution (source: QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022) and has the largest careers fair in the country.
• UL is in the Top 5 in Europe for career preparation.
• UL hosts the largest university Careers Fair in the country, which draws over 800 employers to the region.

Best Student Campus

The University of Limerick’s facilities ensure that students have every opportunity to thrive, make friends and stay healthy. Many are ‘firsts’ or only in Ireland - on this, UL prides itself on being known as the ‘ Home of Firsts ’. From this, UL has been awarded as the Best Student Campus in Ireland, at the Irish Education Awards.

‘Home of Firsts’;

Many of the facilities and initiatives at UL are the first and only available in Ireland and Europe, making them unique to students at the University of Limerick, Ireland’s ‘ Home of Firsts’ . 

Some of the firsts enjoyed by the University include:

• Ireland’s first Olympic standard 50m swimming pool.
• Ireland’s tallest indoor climbing wall.
• Ireland’s only Indoor Rowing Tank and only university that has water facilities on campus.
• The first School of Law replica courtroom in Ireland, used by law students to run mock tribunals and court cases.
• The first state-of-the art medical school to be established since the 1900’s.
• Irelands only academic flight simulator .
• One of the most digitally advanced libraries in the world, The Glucksman Library.
• The Wall Street-style virtual Trading Floor in UL’s Kemmy Business School is the first of its kind in any university in Ireland.
• The Firsts 7 Weeks programme which is the first of its kind for Ireland, that was designed to help new students settle into university life at UL, and ensure academic and social success

These industry-standard facilities ensure that our students gain hands-on learning using the same technology and equipment used by professionals all over the world.

Click on the link below to take a virtual tour around our award-winning campus, where you'll find an unspoiled natural environment blended with state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities.

Virtual Tour | University of Limerick (ul.ie)

Explore rankings data for University of Limerick

Visit our research hub, key statistics.

• 50 : 50 Student Ratio of Females to Males (1)
• 27.1 No. of students per staff (1)
• 15% Percentage of International Students (1)
• 28% Proportion of ISR Publication (1)
• 14,640 Number of FTE Students (1)

Subjects taught at University of Limerick

Physical sciences.

• Physics & Astronomy
• Geology, Environmental, Earth & Marine Sciences
• Mathematics & Statistics

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• History, Philosophy & Theology
• Art, Performing Arts & Design
• Languages, Literature & Linguistics

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• Politics & International Studies (incl Development Studies)
• Communication & Media Studies

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• Electrical & Electronic Engineering
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Clinical, pre-clinical & health

• Other Health
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• Computer Science

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Adventure World Camps is proud of its reputation as an inclusive activity experience and caters for children of all abilities. We are your number one choice for Educational Activity School Tours and Summer Camps for Primary and Secondary School children.

• Adventure World Camps, Bulfin View, Nenagh, Tipperary.
• [email protected]
• 067 33287 | 087 768 2227
• Say Hi! Have a question? Get in touch

• Phone: 067 33287 | 087 768 2227

Adventure World Camps School Tours

Adventure World Camps School Tour Locations

Adventure World Camps are Ireland’s NUMBER ONE choice for School Tours. Check out our locations and book with us this year for a day your school will NEVER forget.

University of Limerick Sport Arena, Castletroy, Limerick

Get Directions

The Watershed, Kilkenny

School tour activities.

Activities are specifically chosen for each centre and to meet the needs of the children in each group. Activities will be educational, challenging and more importantly FUN. All activities are delivered under the careful supervision of our highly qualified staff.

Activities include:

Interactive Play Systems Unclimbable Ladder Giant Inflatable Obstacle Course Last Person Standing Spongee Polo

Pursuit Ball Space Invaders Disco Dome Games/Movement Skills Team Building Games

Giant Inflatable Waterslide Wrecking Ball Health & Well-Being Orienteering Olympic Handball and Dodgeball Dash 'N' Grab

Football Dartboard Swimming Parachute Games Basketball Soccer Shootout

School Tour Booking Information

Before filling out our online booking form: DO NOT FILL OUT AN ONLINE BOOKING FORM BEFORE YOU HAVE CONTACTED THE OFFICE REGARDING DATE AVAILABILITY. A booking is accepted by telephone or email and held for 5 working days. All schools are required to then fill out our ONLINE booking application form. What to do once I fill out the booking form: A copy of this booking form will be sent to the email you provided on the booking form. Please print out this form and post to: Bernie Heffernan, Bulfin View, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. Enclose €100 deposit per school booking – payment of deposit confirms your booking. All cheques made payable to Adventure World Camps. Please note: Detailed arrangements concerning your School Tour will be send to you once a booking form is submitted to us. These details will be sent to the email address you provided on your booking form. It is the school's responsibility to check that all details are correct and that students numbers are accurate. Definite numbers must be provided ONE MONTH prior to tour date. Schools will be charged for the number of students they have booked.

School Tour Information

Dates, venues & prices, school tours t&cs, booking form - university of limerick sport arena, booking form - the watershed, kilkenny.

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Arrive, Eat & Stay

How to get here, free car parking.

University Concert Hall is located 4km from Limerick City on the University of Limerick Campus, just off the main Dublin road (N7).

From Limerick City

Take the Dublin Road out of the city and travel approximately three kilometres to the Parkway roundabout. Go straight through at this roundabout, taking the second exit. At the next roundabout, take the first exit and follow the signs for the University. The main entrance is marked by two large flag poles on the left hand side.

Once on campus, at the first rourndabout take the first exit and continue straight then take the first right hand turn headed towards the Foundation Building, on your right hand side.

From Dublin/Nenagh

Exit the motorway at Junction 28 bringing you onto the Mackey Roundabout, and take the third exit for Castletroy. Go straight through the next two roundabouts (Annacotty and Kilmurry Roundabouts). At the next set of lights turn right onto Milford Road. At the end of this road, turn left onto Plassey Park Road. You will then take a right at the next lights at the main entrance to the UL campus, marked by two large flag poles. Once on campus, at the first roundabout take the first exit an

Regular rail services connect Limerick with Dublin, Cork, Tralee, Killarney, and (via Dublin) with Belfast, Sligo and Westport. Irish Rail Timetable.

Irish Rail Timetable

From Limerick City Centre

There is a regular bus service between the campus and the city centre. At the bus stop near the Centra shop in William St. take the bus for the University or Plassey (usually a No.304). Timetable here

Daily Bus Eireann Timetable servicing UL to City Centre and Raheen. Timetable here

Taxis are available from the Train Station and City Centre to the University and cost on average €9.

There is no taxi rank in close proximity to University Concert Hall for use after a show, however you can order a taxi from one of the following local companies.

Local Taxi Companies

Plassey Cabs – 061 336336 Castletroy Cabs – 061 332266 Treaty Cabs – 061 415566 Fixed Price Taxis – 061 313131

There is ample free parking at UCH. The Foundation car park is the main UCH car park and is located in front of the building.

The main Foundation Building (UCH) car park is a paid car park by day. However, as a UCH customer, you will NOT have to pay the €3 advertised on leaving the car park as the exit barriers will be raised after the show (from 9.30pm for shows with 8pm start time).

Please note there is now one entrance to this main car park (via barrier) and there will be signage directing you to this.

Directions to Car Park: Driving from Flagpoles (Main UL entrance), take the first exit at the roundabout, continue straight to the next roundabout, take the third exit, and the car park will be on your right hand side.

If there are cars behind you when entering the car park, please drive away from the entrance to park to avoid a build-up of cars behind you.

There are two additional, free overflow car parks located an approximate 1 and 5 minute walk from the venue.

Please note that the main car park can fill up on busy show nights so you are advised to arrive early in order to secure parking nearest the venue.

Check out the video below to see exactly where to park:

Food and Drink

University Concert Hall’s facilities have been extensively refurbished. Relax in our luxurious seating area and enjoy the sleek new décor of our atrium. Our bar is open an hour before each show. A range of drinks and snacks are available here.

Enjoy Pre-Show Dining in Allegro café. Light Italian Dining, Barista Coffee, Sweet Treats and Wine, all served in the exquisite surroundings of University Concert Hall. Reservations: 086 1701242 / [email protected]

The East Room

The East Room at Plassey House presents a luxurious, fine dining experience, situated just 5-minute walk from UCH. Combining local foraging, artisan ingredients and house-grown produce in an elegant, seasonal dining experience. This is an enchanting pre-show option for that special occasion.  Winner – Best Emerging Irish Cuisine – Irish Restaurant Awards 2019.

Spend the Night

There are a number of excellent hotels in close proximity to University Concert Hall and in Limerick City with three, four and five star options available to cater for all budgets. In the summer months there is also self-catering accommodation available on campus.

Perfectly located between the city and the University of Limerick campus, making it the ideal choice for visitors to UCH and holidaymakers. All rooms feature a comfy king size bed with plump pillows and cosy duvet.

Distance from UCH: 1.8km

Castletroy Park Hotel

This leading 4 star hotel is located at the gates of the University of Limerick. With a newly redesigned interior, full leisure facilities, complimentary parking and wi-fi.

Distance from UCH: 1.1km

Campus Accommodation

Brennan Court Guest Accommodation is ideally located on campus with two and four bedroom apartments offering large ensuite rooms together with large kitchen / lounge, which provides a venue for dining and relaxation. The accommodation is furnished to the highest standards throughout.

Distance from UCH: On Campus

More helpful resources.

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European cities hope jet-setting Taylor Swift fans will splash the cash for Eras tour

The superstar arrives in Europe next month – and Swifties, tourist boards and venues are already preparing

T im Brown, 44, and his wife, Marcella, 34, may not consider themselves bona fide “Swifties”, but when it was announced last June that Taylor Swift would be visiting their corner of the globe this summer they could not resist joining the scramble for a pair of tickets.

A post-pandemic appetite for live music events has fuelled huge worldwide interest in the American singer-songwriter’s Eras tour, which surpassed in $1bn sales in November to become the highest-grossing series of concerts in history.

The pop culture event of the summer will arrive in Europe next month, kicking off in Paris on 9 May and wrapping up in London on 20 August with 49 dates in between in Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The unique nature of the tour’s ticketing system, which was tweaked after a number of hitches last year, means there will be a mass movement of travelling fans who will not only be Swiftie in affiliation but swift-like in their willingness to travel across the continent.

In expectation of intense demand, Ticketmaster introduced a pre-registration system that rewarded some early applicants with access codes to the ticket sale proper, via staggered windows for each city.

Notionally designed to prioritise genuine fans over “scalpers” – people who buy and resell tickets for a quick profit – the pre-sales system also meant many fans registered for tickets in multiple destinations across Europe to increase their chances.

Tim and Marcella, who live in Norwich, registered not just for the nearest concerts – in London and Liverpool – but also in Amsterdam and Lisbon. The pair got lucky with a pair of €91 tickets in the Portuguese capital and have turned the trip into a weekend break. “I used to live in Lisbon so I thought why not kill two birds with one stone,” Tim said. “We booked ourselves flights and four nights’ accommodation the same day.” They are far from alone.

Katie Soo, the chief business officer of DICE, a rival ticketing company, said: “The excitement and uncertainty inherent in the ticket-purchasing process might have inadvertently incentivised fans to apply for tickets in multiple cities, thereby increasing the likelihood of travelling across Europe to attend the concerts.”

Hotel prices

Several European cities have already reported a sharp rise in demand for hotel and short-term rental accommodation over the summer, when the Swift hurricane will arrive. In Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff, rooms at the Travelodge chain around Swift’s June dates have been sold out since August 2023, a month after tickets for the shows went on sale.

In Paris, where fans anticipate Swift to debut an updated version of the Eras show with songs from the new Tortured Poets Department album, 80% of hotels and apartments listed on Booking.com are already full up. In Warsaw on 2 August, only 9% of hotels listed on the same site are still available.

Not all of the 18 cities covered by the Eras tour are obvious tourism destinations. From 17-19 July, Swift will play three concerts at the 65,000-capacity home ground of the football club Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen in Ruhr valley, western Germany. The city’s less-than-familiar name prompted one US chatshow host to quip that “the place might not even exist”.

Yet even in Germany’s rust belt the influx of Swift fans is temporarily transforming the hotel market: any two-bedroom apartments that remain available are going for €800-2,000 a night, with cheaper accommodation available only in surrounding cities that are just as off the usual tourist track as Gelsenkirchen, such as Essen, Bochum or Herne.

Cities with stricter rules on allowing Airbnb-style holiday lets and a more limited stock of short-term rental apartments are reporting a particularly marked increase in rates during Swift’s visit, with about 30% year-on-year spikes in rental rates in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Milan, according to AirDNA, a data analytics company specialising in the short-term rentals market.

Of all the tour’s European stops, Vienna is experiencing the most notable impact on its rental market, with booking rates for the nights of Swift’s concerts recorded in February 44% higher than at the same point the previous year. By the end of March the number of nights booked in the Austrian capital for the length of Swift’s stay in the second week of August had risen by 430% compared with the same period in 2023.

When Luke Tilden’s wife, Tatjana, suggested last summer that the couple buy their 13- and 15-year-old daughters, Lena and Maya, tickets to a Taylor Swift gig for Christmas, the 53-year-old Briton initially waved it off. “There’s no chance in hell we’d get a ticket without paying through our noses, I thought,” said Tilden, who works as an interpreter at the European parliament in Brussels.

But after pre-registering for tickets in London, Paris and Munich, the Tildens got unexpectedly lucky for four tickets in southern Germany and have turned the concert visit into a mini-holiday: “We’ll visit the in-laws in Bavaria, enjoy the countryside, do a bit of hiking.”

The hope in cities across Europe is that this will be replicated on a massive scale, with fans’ excitement translating into generous spending sprees on food, shopping and leisure. In Stockholm, for example, where authorities are expecting 159,000 visitors to arrive from 135 countries in mid-May, the chamber of commerce has forecast a spending boost of €50m. “We hope the whole town will buzz from the Eras tour,” said Tomas Andersson, a spokesperson for the Swedish capital’s tourism board.

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Whether fans will necessarily act like ordinary tourists, however, is up for debate. “Pop-culture tourists do not necessarily care about traditional buildings and authentic restaurants,” said Maria Lexhagen, a professor at the European Tourism Research Institute, Mid Sweden University.

“Joining up with other fan communities is stronger motivation, as is the idea that they might get closer to the stars themselves. Many of them will map out where Swift is spending her time in the city – they will seek out seemingly marginal but meaningful places like back alleys or coffee shops.” Venues may be hoping for a repeat of Sydney in February, when Swift swept into an unassuming Italian restaurant in the suburbs and sent its name into global media headlines.

In Stockholm the tourism board said it was expecting bookshops and secondhand clothes stores, rather than museums and royal palaces, to attract most of the arriving visitors. Some venues are being proactive: one restaurant within walking distance of the multipurpose Friends Arena in the Solna municipality is putting on a “Taylor Swift brunch experience” with a karaoke stage; the waterfront nightclub Debaser is hosting a pre-concert party on 16 May, an all-ages all-day party with a Swift-themed quiz on 19 May and an afterparty the day after.

Environment

As the Swift circus rolls across the continent, the transport infrastructure of urban centres will also be put to the test. Around the tour’s three-night stop in Dublin at the end of June, Irish Rail has announced additional late-night services to Cork and Limerick to meet an expected increase in demand. Extra tram and bus services are likely to be announced nearer the time.

Unlike rail operators, most airlines do not have capacity to charter additional flights. Due to yield management – airlines adjusting prices based on expected demand – a scramble for airborne journeys into cities that host the Eras tour is more likely to result in more expensive tickets rather than additional flights.

Officials at Lisbon airport said no additional flights had been chartered around Swift’s concerts on 24 and 25 May but that demand would probably be reflected in slightly higher load factors. A spokesperson for Amsterdam Schiphol said general aviation slots could be requested at short notice but nothing out of the ordinary had been logged so far.

Calculating the environmental impact of the tour with any certainty was difficult, experts said. “We can expect that some Swift fans will travel a long way to see one, if not several, shows across Europe”, said Stefan Gössling, a professor of tourism at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden. “But measuring the environmental impact of these trips is extremely difficult – it would involve a lot of guesswork.”

This did not mean the carbon footprint was negligible. “Every flight taken by a person adds to demand and hence influences supply considerations,” Gössling said. “The greater the demand, the more aircrafts are in service.”

The pop star’s carbon footprint is easier to estimate. Swift owns two jets by the French manufacturer Dassault, whose journeys are trackable. During the 2023 leg of the Eras tour, Swift’s planes spent 166 hours crisscrossing the US in about 75 individual journeys, though it is possible they were used by people other than the singer.

According to data available through the open-access aviation tracker ADS-B exchange, Swift’s jets caused carbon emissions of about 2,830 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent over the course of the US Eras tour – about 1,700 times the annual contribution of an average person.

A spokesperson for Swift told US media last year that in advance of the tour’s start in March 2023, the pop star bought more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel. Carbon offset credits are tradable certificates that allow purchasers to compensate for emissions by investing in environmental projects that claim to reduce carbon emissions, though recent studies have questioned the efficacy of these schemes.

Additional reporting by Ajit Niranjan

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