LUXURY IN LIMERICK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 25, 16 September 1946, Page 7

LUXURY IN LIMERICK

CITY OF PLENTY SKY IS THE LIMIT Fortunes are being made —and spent—in Limerick, the city of plenty. Rich visitors from the new world and the old sip whisky at 3s a glass with attractive Irish girls, spend lavishly in a fairyland of luxury shops, and play poker for high stakes. Money has almost lost its value. Limerick is crowded to bursting point with British, American and Irish airmen, Transatlantic air passengers, and smartly-dressed young Irish girls (writes a special correspondent).

Many of the girls who frequent the well-stocked lounge "bars have acquired American accents. They join the Americans in playing poker for reckless stakes. One night a young girl went up to £64 with a pair of tens. She lost to another girl who had two small pairs. .. «

The most fantastic situation in this fantastic city is the price of accommodation—if you can get it. Hotel charges are controlled, and fame and fortune are often useless as a bargaining power. So the sky is the limit for board-ing-house proprietors. Families are . crowding into the homes of their relatives and letting their own.

A visitor has rented a house in County Limerick at £IOO a month. A Government scheme' for a £250,000 luxury hotel has sent the value of land and property rocketing.

American ground crews occupy whole hotels all the year round. Now British Overseas Airways Corporation is negotiating for part of Lord Inchiquin’s residence, Dromoland Castle.

Shops have an array of all kinds of new goods probably unequalled in any town of*its size—its normal population is 41,000. Lounge bars are raking in a high proportion of Limerick’s new wealth.

Scotch, at 3s a glass, is 6d to lOd dearer than in Dublin.