Figuring out your CAO list shouldn't be a guess — not in Limerick, not anywhere.
A psychometric course-match test built for Irish Leaving Cert students, paired here with a genuinely local look at where Limerick students actually go — UL, MIC, TUS, LCETB's further education campuses, and the employers hiring around the city.
If you're finishing the Leaving Cert in a Limerick school this year, the honest problem isn't a shortage of options — it's the opposite. Between the University of Limerick, TUS's Limerick campus, Mary Immaculate College, the seven LCETB further education campuses inside the city boundary, and a growing apprenticeship system, there are more legitimate routes into work than any one guidance class can cover in the time it has. The CAO Course Match Test doesn't replace that guidance — it gives you a starting shortlist, built from how you actually think and what you're actually good at, so the conversation with your guidance counsellor starts somewhere useful instead of from a blank CAO handbook.
This page exists because Limerick's story isn't the same as Cork's, Dublin's or Donegal's. The city runs on a specific mix of a large multi-faculty university on its doorstep, one of the country's oldest teacher-training colleges, a technological university with deep further-education roots, and an industrial base built on medtech and biopharma manufacturing rather than finance or tech. Below is what that actually looks like, sourced from the institutions and public bodies themselves — not filler.
The numbers behind the choice
Five routes, all inside the city or a short drive out
University of Limerick
Founded in 1972 on a 330-acre campus straddling the Shannon, about 5km from the city centre, UL now has over 19,000 students and 2,130 staff. It's organised across faculties including the Kemmy Business School, Science and Engineering, Education and Health Sciences, Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, a School of Medicine, and the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance — a genuinely wide spread of CAO codes to search through rather than guess at.
Mary Immaculate College
MIC was established in 1898 by Bishop Edward T. O'Dwyer and the Sisters of Mercy for the professional education of primary school teachers, opening formally in 1902 with its first intake of 75 students. It became the first Irish college of education to go co-educational in 1969 and the first recognised as an NUI college in 1974. It has since grown well beyond teacher training into Arts, postgraduate and doctoral programmes, with 5,000+ students by 2019.
TUS: Midlands Midwest, Limerick campus
Formed on 1 October 2021 from the merger of Limerick Institute of Technology and Athlone Institute of Technology, TUS now serves over 14,000 students with principal campuses at Limerick and Athlone, alongside its other regional campuses. Its Limerick roots run through LIT, and its course mix leans practical and industry-linked — a genuine alternative track to the university route for students who want it.
LCETB further education & training
Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board's Further Education and Training division serves over 35,000 learners a year across the two counties, delivered through 28 multi-campus College of FET locations and 300+ participating community locations. Inside Limerick city alone there are seven dedicated FET campuses — Green Innovation Campus, Hospitality Campus, Kilmallock Road Campus, Mulgrave Street Campus, O'Connell Avenue Campus, Raheen Campus and Northside Campus — covering everything from PLC courses to apprenticeship-linked training.
Beyond the academic route
Limerick School of Music, founded in January 1962 and based on Mulgrave Street, is the largest provider of music tuition in the Mid-West, teaching around 1,500 students a year from Gateway to Music right through to diploma-level and Leaving Certificate Music. Two separate Music Generation programmes — Music Generation Limerick City and Music Generation Limerick County — add subsidised performance-music tuition on top. For outdoor and adventure education, Kilfinane Outdoor Education Centre, run by LCETB in the Ballyhoura area of Co. Limerick, delivers residential and activity-based programmes for secondary schools and youth groups.
Sources: Limerick School of Music, Music Generation Limerick City, Music Generation Limerick County, LCETB
What a Limerick CAO course can actually lead to, locally
Part of choosing a course well is knowing what's hiring nearby once you graduate — or during a co-op or placement year. Limerick's industrial base is heavily medtech and biopharma, concentrated around Raheen Business Park on the city's south side, alongside a wider FDI cluster the IDA cites as one of the drivers behind the Mid-West's economy.
Operating in Limerick since 1972 (originally as Howmedica, acquired by Stryker in 1998), the 129,000 sq ft Raheen facility manufactures orthopaedic knee implants, craniomaxillofacial and spine devices, and operates as a centre of automation excellence for the group.
Source: Stryker, Limerick location; site confirmed as Raheen Business Park via Wikipedia, Raheen, County Limerick
Regeneron's Industrial Operations and Product Supply facility in Raheen Business Park became operational in 2015 and, at 400,000 sq ft, is described as the largest-scale bulk biologics production facility in Ireland. Following a 2020 expansion the site grew past 1,400 employees, up from an initial target of 800 by the end of 2018.
Cook Medical had already operated in Limerick for 20 years by 2013, when it opened a €10 million Innovation Centre developing peripheral vascular, gastroenterology and urology devices for global distribution — at the time employing around 800 people in Limerick and accounting for over 10% of the company's global output to 135 countries.
Source: Cook Medical newsroom
That's the kind of detail worth knowing before you rank a biomedical engineering, science or business course on your CAO form — Limerick isn't just where you'd study, for a lot of these employers it's also where you'd work.
Get a shortlist built from how you think, not a guess based on your favourite subject.
A psychometric course-match assessment covering interests, aptitudes and work style, matched against real CAO course codes nationwide — with the Limerick context above built in for students applying from this county.
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