Understanding Limerick is an edited collection featuring contributions from leading Irish scholars in the fields of Sociology, Social Policy, Criminology and Urban Geography. Limerick city has some of the most severely disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the Republic of Ireland. The city has also experienced a range of problems in relation to organized crime, gangland feuding and community violence. This collection seeks to explore how profound social exclusion and poverty-related criminality emerged in Limerick city.

Over the last twenty years, Ireland has undergone significant transformation and, as a consequence, notions of Irish identity and nationality have been in constant flux. For this reason, it is a timely moment to consider visual representations, both past and present, of Irish cultural life, and contribute to conversations about questions such as: What kind of iconic currencies does Ireland have? How should we see them? Are there specific ideological frameworks operating when we imagine Ireland? Can we imagine Irishness differently?

This handbook will provide the reader with a clear and reliable means of identifying those plants which grow wild in Ireland. This book is a comprehensive re-working of the classic and standard Flora of Ireland which was last published 16 years ago: this will be the eighth edition of that work. It has been brought fully up to date through incorporating the latest in botanical research and it reflects contemporary and modern approaches to plant classification based on recent advances in genetics. Trees, shrubs and climbers in winter are now covered for the first time. Also included is a list of plants that have legal protection in Ireland. Webb’s an Irish Flora is illustrated throughout with hand-coloured drawings. This handy reference book for botanists both amateur and professional, gardeners, hill walkers, students, farmers and naturalists. It is about the higher plants that grow wild and which are commonly naturalised or otherwise encountered in Ireland. It is designed to help you identify and provide you with background information on plant morphology, distribution and rarity and to educate all those interested in recognising the species of the flora of Ireland. Previous editions of the book have been used by workers outside of the specific field of study of plant identification – such as environmental consultants, the general public, students, professional and amateur botanists etc. There is a genuine demand for a Flora whose subject matter refers explicitly to Ireland whilst placing that flora in a wider context. Furthermore, a concise flora of a discrete geographical area is of interest internationally to many professional and amateur botanists and gardeners. The book has, is and will be used in student training (it is used as a basic botanical text book in some Universities in Ireland) and on training courses for professionals wishing to improve their skills and for all those needing to improve their levels of botanical expertise.