Why could Britain’s Nelson not be removed from atop the pillar and replaced with Parnell or O’Connell – so the RA wouldn’t have a reason to blow the whole feckin pillar up in 1966 ?? We had no problem changing the name of Queenstown/Cóbh or Kingstown/Dún Laoghaire.
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Long term planning. They were already thinking about the spire. The millennium was only a few short decades away.
With the state of Dublin city council planning they didn’t have much time.
Easier to get the IRA to blow it up. Move the rubble and then simply wait for google to be invented so they can search for “giant spire suppliers”.
Genius really.
Because its easier to rename a town than throw replace a 60ft lad atop a 450ft pipe
Sutcliffe really only blew up the statue.
It was the government that blew up the pillar and half the windows on the surrounding street
Too busy chasing the real criminals… lads buying condoms and lassies buying the pill.
There never was a pillar there Joyce just made it up for Ulysses.
When O’Connell St. was elegant.
Everyone loves a bit of firework every now and again, especially when a statue of a brit is involved!
Too much like hard work
Would people want things like Wellingtons monument removed these days, or would they be bothered? I doubt most care these days m
To be fair they’d tried to burn it down previously and it didn’t work… Next logical step is to plant a bomb.
They used Tec7 on it
The RA didn’t blow it up, the guy generally accepted to have done it did it against orders using explosives stolen from the IRA.
Nelson was a sound bloke, a vicar’s son who went to sea and worked his way up to Admiral by being a good leader. He also gave character evidence in favour of his friend Irishman Edward Marcus Despard who was on trial for treason in Britain (fitted up for conspiracy to kill the king).
Clear out any remaining Brit statues glorifying imperialists and their generals. Rename streets that colonists and their collaborators named after their toxic leaders.
I was up it three times (twice mitching), it cost 3d from what I remember. The Irish Army got a fierce slagging for the destruction they caused in demolishing the stump. I guess they didn’t know much about explosives either.
Sometime later I met an Official and I gave out yards about it. I didn’t mind the eroded statue but the pillar, no. I was told something along the lines that we thought it was time to go. The story seems to have changed since, either a bit of honesty or plausible deniability. Stealing explosives from mines and construction sites was a doddle then, even up to the early 1970s.
Maybe it was a bit of delayed art criticism; a quote from 1821 (*Real Life in Ireland*): “It was mortal ugly and the ship on top looked like a dog-vane on a maypole” with a comment that the Devil’s architect couldn’t do worse.
As for the joke of a yoke there now, the crane that erected the top bit was far more interesting. They could have made a nice viewing platform with a cafe ( a pub might be a ~~bridge too far~~ pillar too high)
Should rebuild it with Irish revolutionarys on it instead or a different monument entirly built to honour famous Irish figures anything but the decking spire
Because he was a unit. You think the French/Napoleon would have stopped at Britain!? You could be eating better food and wine had he not stopped them. Shudders like Lionel Hutz.
Sad to see the state of O’Connell street now in comparison to this pic
The brits greased up the pillar before they left so the government couldn’t climb up and replace him.
Replace with Collins or Connolly not Parnell
Dún Laoghaire and Cobh.. really it was just to have at least a few places for these new tourist people have trouble saying, with a few sheepish holiday laughs too of course. Oh Papa! Cest n’est pas Cobb! Fwah fwah!
The spire is so damn ugly! Who the hell thought it was a good move
Sure we wouldn’t have got a cracking song about a simple replacement. Oooooooh well poor aul Admiral Nelson is no longer in the air…