Laughing here at an Australian calling another nationality insular, racist and sexist!! Hilarious!
Limerick did have a bad reputation a very long time ago. There are a couple of bad areas but what town or city doesn’t have those?
There are very nice subarbs like others have mentioned, dooradoyle, annacotty etc and nice nearby towns like adare and kilaloo that are worth looking into.
People are friendly and there are people from all over the world. Not as multi-cultural as UK cities as the Irish don’t have a history of colonising other countries which brought a lot of immigration to the UK but you will find lots of Australians, Chinese and other EU nationals in Ireland.
Ireland has a rich history of dance, literature and music and this continues. All of the creative minds haven’t left as another poster, who obviously knows nothing about Ireland suggested. There are a lot of events on all around Ireland such as music, theatre etc and with regard to professionals leaving, it is in fact quite the opposite.
Many who left Ireland in the 1990’s and are now in their 40’s have returned from all over the world to raise their children as Ireland is a great place for children. I know many who returned to limerick from the US and Australia.
Ireland is not perfect. Healthcare and childcare are expensive and the weather is awful but once you know that you won’t be surprised.
Again, shocked at some of the comments on here about Irish people and their country. If the same insults were said about English people there would be uproar!