Limerick has rediscovered the River Shannon, turning its architecture towards it while evolving as a centre for academia with two third-level colleges. It is also a centre for classical music with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the World Music Centre and Lyric FM, and it is now a centre for the electronics industry with the establishment of the Plassey Technological Park and the arrival of Dell Computers as a major employer.
Yet, in some circles, it still suffers from the "Stab City" nickname, which was always unfair and, now more than ever, is at odds with the fast-modernising Treaty City. The image of it being a crime-ridden, dangerous city has been ingrained in the minds of outsiders since the nickname became popular in the 1980s.
It affects everybody who moves beyond the city environs and anybody who is moving to live there. It is also more pervasive than any perceptions likely to accrue in people's minds from the film version of Angela's Ashes, which depicts a rain-sodden, depressing city.
Although very conscious of the "Stab City" image, people are unsure how to react. Are they being too self-conscious and sensitive if they take it seriously? Most take the slagging, knowing that to be seen to react seriously would add to the general hilarity. John Ryan and Fergus South both worked in the telecoms industry in Dublin before returning to Limerick.
They recall the jokes and the comments very well. John says that for every Limerick person, it is the same, comparing it to the Irish in Britain in the 1970s. "I was the most slagged person in the office because I was from Limerick," says John. "I think it is overdone, the dark side is overdone."
Fergus recommends that the detractors should live in the city for a while. "It is a great town to work in, a great sporting town, great for performing arts and great academically."
The incidence of crime is hardly an indicator of the city's reputation. In the Limerick division, which includes the city and county and a population of 165,000, there were three murders last year and two in 1998. There were 3,188 recorded crimes in 1998 compared to 5,722 in Cork city, with a population of 127,000. "It is no better or no worse than anywhere else," says Chief Supt Noel O'Sullivan, who took over the division last August.
He describes Limerick as "a modern, vibrant city" whose crime figures are "going in the right direction". Mr Brendan Halligan, editor of the Limerick Leader, says the city has traditionally had a problem with negative images, citing the pogrom against its Jewish population in 1904, while, most recently, the controversy around the image of Limerick as depicted in the Angela's Ashes film, and the accuracy of the book, has run and run in the world media. Last week the Limerick actor, Richard Harris, writing in the Sunday Times, accused the book's author, Frank McCourt, and the film's director, Alan Parker, of "pouring out anti-Limerick propaganda".
But any negativity stemming from Angela's Ashes is benign compared to the "Stab City" nickname, which appears to stem from Christmas 1982, when there were three unconnected murders in Limerick, one of them of a Libyan student. Mr Halligan says that Scrap Satur- day, the former satirical radio programme, is blamed for popularising it.
"You have got to take a joke but when something is completely gratuitous - if it appears in something like The Irish Times - you go to the source and challenge it. And people do not like that."
One positive image the city has is the renowned beauty of its women. Although this may be in the eye of the beholder, the city's setting on the Shannon and the view of the Clare hills is "unsurpassed", says Mr Halligan.
Perhaps the city's greatest cultural achievement is its rugby and the loyalties generated through supporting the rival city clubs. "It unites people yet divides them," says Mr Halligan.
Mr Brendan Woods, chief executive of Limerck Chamber of Commerce, focuses on promoting the city rather than reacting to adverse publicity. Over 20 years, he has seen it grow from being "a pretty dour city, but let us face it, it was in good company all round".
Originally from Navan, he says Limerick has pioneered urban renewal growth to become a thriving city and he subscribes to the concept that it is the State's best-kept secret.