THE PEOPLES PARK

A Grand Green Excess

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SUMMERTIME

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Thanks to the intolerable cruelty of a work related course this morning ,I found myself free for a glorious summer interlude in the afternoon. With uncustomary foresight I had packed a picnic before leaving the house and as soon as I was released from my vocational commitment I skipped up to the Peoples Park in the heart of Limerick city. Here summer is celebrating in grand green excesses midst sheltering trees and fragrant rose-beds !
The origins of the Park stretches back to the 19th. century, 1877 to be precise when it was opened in memory of Richard Russell a prominent businessman of the time, so for the last two hundred years it has been an oasis of retreat from the din and commerce of the city. On this afternoon, the lawns and benches are festooned with workers from the nearby offices indulging in a little solar therapy on their lunch hour…large groups of students congregate squat legged in circles between throws of a Frisbee …old men saunter along the meandering paths walking their dogs…children playing ball and toddlers taking first tentative steps as daisies press between their toes…proud grannies wheeling their children’s offspring out in the blaze of the summer sun, babies peering out from under large floppy bonnets.
The hum of distant traffic only accentuates the liberating feeling of escape in this tranquil landscape as the words of an old John Denver song seems to waft in the very air…“Find yourself a piece of grassy ground…Lay down close your eyes…Find yourself and maybe loose yourself…While your free spirit flies…” Here is summer at full throttle, the sound of children at play, the thud thud of a bouncing ball, the swishing of the stately trees in the gentle summer wind and the general feeling of health and well-being permeating the very atmosphere in this distillation of time and space!
Once again the Park has drawn to itself its native citizens…the people ! Lured from the hard streets to this pastoral island which is truly ,on this June afternoon, the Peoples Park !

Gerard O'Shea