TO MOST people it’s just a humble plastic bucket, but to pensioner John Joe McCarthy it’s a valued souvenir of one of the most fascinating days in his life – the day Pope John Paul II came to Limerick.
…So much so that John Joe is planning to present a simple black plastic bucket, which he has had mounted on a slab of marble, to his former school, in memory of the Pope’s visit to Ireland more than 30 years ago.

“I used the bucket to carry my provisions for the day – my lunch, my camera and my binoculars,’ he says, quipping that the solid two-gallon bucket, which measures more than 12 inches in height, also served two other important functions.
“I used the bucket to sit on and I also turned it over and stood on it in order to take pictures of the Pope…”