The University of Limerick campus

You might have seen this text - the HR department uses it whenever it publicizes job vacancies on various mailing lists:

The University of Limerick (UL) with over 11,000 students and 1,300 staff is a young, energetic and enterprising University with a proud record of innovation in education and excellence in research and scholarship. UL is situated on a superb riverside campus of over 130 hectares with the River Shannon as a unifying focal point. Outstanding recreational, cultural and sporting facilities further enhance this exceptional learning and working environment.

But the words are not enough to describe the place. So we thought of adding a few pictures:













This is the Computer Science building, where the main conference will take place.














And this is a view toward the Clare side of the campus - on the other side of the Shannon. What you can guess there is the Health Sciences building, but the focus here was really on the rainbow! No idea if there was any pot of gold at the end of it, we couldn't go searching, we're too busy here preparing the conference!

Why a conference blog?

The preparation for ICGSE'09 actually started 2 years ago in Munich, when, on behalf of Lero- the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, we first proposed the University of Limerick as the venue for 2009.

In Bangalore in 2008, we started talking about the organization in much more detail, and once returned to Limerick, the actual preparations began.

We're starting now a conference blog, 7 months before the actual conference.

Why a conference blog?!

• It might be interesting for the potential participants to get a few glimpses of the preparations.
• It can be used for the organisers of the next editions for duplicating what went well, and avoiding what went wrong (hopefully not too many things in this second category!)
• It is a handy way to get feedback from the people who attended the previous editions and would like to make suggestions for this year.
• It could be a consolation for the ones who won't make it to Limerick, but would like to keep an eye on what happens.

You'll have the chance to read about the venue, the social events, about how to get here, about places to go while in Limerick and, of course, about the famous Irish weather!

And to end this first post, an Irish blessing for all our readers:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand!

May the leprechauns be near you
To spread luck along your way!