Nelson's Pillar

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Image:Nelsons Pillar Dublin.jpg

Nelson's Pillar was a controversial large granite pillar topped by a statue of Horatio, Lord Nelson, located in the centre of O'Connell Street in Dublin. It was erected in 1808 upon the instructions of the British Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Richmond, to honour Admiral Lord Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, three years after his death, and before the similar Nelson's Column was erected in London in 1849. The pillar became both a tram terminus and a common meeting place for Dubliners and offered the city's best public viewing platform, reached by spiral stairway inside the column. It was destroyed in 1966.

Contents 1 Description 2 Destruction of the Pillar 3 Songs about the fall of Nelson's Pillar 3.1 Up Went Nelson by The Go Lucky Four 3.2 Lord Nelson by Tommy Makem 3.3 Nelson's Farewell by Joe Dolan 4 See also 5 References

Description

The pillar was a Doric column that rose 121 ft (36.8 m) from the ground and was topped by a 13 ft (3.9 m) tall statue in Portland stone by Cork sculptor Thomas Kirk, RHA (1781-1845), giving it a total height of 134 ft (40.8 m) – some 20 metres shorter than the more famous Nelson's Column in London. It was designed by Francis Johnson (1760-1829), the architect who built the General Post Office (to the left of the picture opposite). Johnson and later architects laid out Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) so that the buildings, the GPO and the Pillar were in scale to the size and length of the street and to each other. The original entrance to the pillar was underground but G. P. Baxter designed a porch in 1894 which was added to allow direct access from the street.

Destruction of the Pillar

Image:Nelsons Pillar Dublin2.jpg

Nelson's Pillar had from the outset been very unpopular. Dublin city council had originally rejected it but were overruled by the Duke of Richmond, the British Lord Lieutenant, in 1808. A writer on Dublin's history in 1909, Dillon Cosgrave, acknowledged the temporary nature of the Pillar's existence remarking that 'For a very long time the project of removing the Pillar, which many condemn as an obstruction to traffic, has been mooted, but it has never taken definite shape'. Template:Note Numerous attempts were made subsequently to have it removed, including by An Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, in 1960.Template:Ref At 2am on March 8, 1966 a group of former IRA men, including Joe ChristleTemplate:Ref, gave definite shape to this opposition by planting a bomb that destroyed the upper half of the pillar, throwing the statue of Nelson into the street and causing large chunks of stone to be flung around the vicinity. Christle, dismissed ten years earlier from the IRA for unauthorised actions, was qualified as a barrister and saw himself as a socialist revolutionary. It is thought that the bombers acted when they did to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. As a relic of Ireland's colonial past, the statue was unpopular with many people, and plans for its removal by Dublin Corporation were made and subsequently dropped several times. No one was hurt by the explosion. The closest bystander was 19-year-old taxi driver Steve Maughan, whose taxi was destroyed. O'Connell Street enjoyed a cheery atmosphere for a few days as people crowded in to appreciate the novelty that was being referred to around town as The Stump.

Two days after the original damage, Irish Army engineers blew up the rest of the pillar after judging the vestigial structure to be too unsafe to restore. These experts' explosion caused more destruction on O'Connell Street than the original blast, breaking many windows and causing painfully-amused Dubliners to roll their eyes.

Within a matter of days, a group of Belfast school teachers: Gerry Burns, Finbar Carrolan, John Sullivan and Eamonn McGirr, known as The Go Lucky Four reached the top of the Irish music charts with Up Went Nelson, a popular folk music song to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic which maintained the Number 1 spot for 8 consecutive weeks.

The rubble from the monument was taken to the East Wall dump and the lettering from the plinth moved to the gardens of Butler House, Kilkenny.

Ken Dolan and six other studentsTemplate:Ref from the National College of Art and Design stole the statue's head on St. Patrick's Day from a storage shed on Clanbrassil Street as a fund-raising prank to pay off a Student Union's debt. They leased the head for £200 a month to an antiques dealer in London for his shop window. It also appeared in a women's stocking commercial, shot on Killiney Beach, and on the stage of the Olympia Theatre with The Dubliners. The students finally gave the head to the Lady Nelson of the day about six months after taking it, and it is now in the Civic Museum in Dublin.

The Nelson's Pillar Act was passed in 1967, transferring responsibility for the site of the monument from the Nelson Pillar Trustees to Dublin Corporation. The site was simply paved over by the authorities until The Spire of Dublin was erected there in 2003. In 2001, whilst the site was being excavated to prepare for the foundations of the spire, The Irish TimesTemplate:Ref announced the discovery of a 200 year old time capsule. This in fact turned out to be a dedication plaqueTemplate:Ref commemorating Nelson's achievements.

On April 23, 2000, Liam Sutcliffe, 67, from the suburb of Walkinstown, claimedTemplate:Ref on the RTE radio programme Voices of the 20th Century that he was responsible for blowing up the monument. Sutcliffe is a republican supporter who has been linked in the past to the Official Sinn Féin movement. He maintained that in Operation Humpty Dumpty the explosive used was a mixture of gelignite and ammonal. He declined to confirm his remarks when he received a visit at home from Garda Special Branch detectives four months after his radio interview, in August. Then, on the morning of September 21st, he was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and invited to repeat his allegations at Store Street Garda Station. His reluctance to do so while in custody resulted in his release without charge that night. The Gardai prepared a file for review by the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide if the matter should be pursued further.

The identity of the bombers has been a source of speculation and conflicting claims of responsibility, much like the empty boasts of many older Dubliners that they were in the GPO during the Easter Rising in 1916. One republican source even asserted that the operation enjoyed the help of a Basque explosives expert owing to an alleged lack of expertise amongst the conspirators.

Songs about the fall of Nelson's Pillar

Up Went Nelson by The Go Lucky Four

(Chorus): Up went Nelson in Old Dublin,

Up went Nelson in Old Dublin,

All along O'Connell Street the stones and rubble flew,

As up went Nelson and the pillar too.

One early morning in the year of '66,

A band of Irish laddies were knocking up some tricks,

They thought Horatio Nelson had over stayed a mite,

So they helped him on his way with some sticks of gelignite.

(Chorus)

The Irish population came from miles around,

To see the English hero lying on the ground,

The Dublin Corporation had no funds to have it done,

But the pillar blew to pieces by the tonne, tonne, tonne.

(Chorus)

A crowd of lads and lassies from a dance nearby came out,

To see the bits of Nelson lying all about,

A gossoon from the Coombe says we'll have to have a care,

In case the Corporation put King Billy there.

(Chorus)

Lord Nelson by Tommy Makem

Lord Nelson stood in pompous state, upon his pillar high

And down along O'Connell Street he cast a wicked eye

He thought how this barbaric race had fought the British Crown

Yet they were content to let him stay right there in Dublin town!

So remember Brave Lord Nelson, boys,

He has never known defeat

And for his reward they stuck him up

In the middle of O'Connell Street!

For many years, Lord Nelson stood, and no one seemed to care

He would squint at Dan O'Connell who was standin right down there

He thought the Irish love me or they wouldn't let me stay,

All except that band of blighters that they call the IRA!

And then in nineteen sixty six, on March the seventh day,

A bloody great explosion made Lord Nelson rock and sway!

He crashed, and Dan O'Connell cried, in woeful misery

Now twice as many pigeons will come and shit on me!

Nelson's Farewell by Joe Dolan

Released as a track by The Dubliners on their album Finnegan Wakes in 1966.

Well, that poor old Admiral Nelson

Is no longer in the air,

Sing toora loora loora looraloo,

On the eighth day of March in Dublin City fair,

Sing toora loora loora looraloo,

From his stand of stones and mortar,

He fell crashing through the quarter,

Where once he stood so stiff and proud and rude

So let's sing our celebration,

It's a service to the nation.

So poor Admiral Nelson Tooraloo.

Oh fifty pounds of gelignite

It sped him on his way,

And the lad that laid the charge,

We're in debt to him today

In Trafalgar Square it might be fair

To leave ould Nelson standing there

But no-one tells the Irish what they'll view.

Now the Dublin Corporation can stop deliberations,

For the boys of Ireland showed them what to do.

For a hundred and fifty seven years

It stood up there in state,

To mark ould Nelson's victory

O'er the French and Spanish fleet,

But one-thirty in the morning,

Without a bit of warning,

Poor Nelson took a powder and he blew.

Oh at last the Irish nation

Has Parnell in higher station

Than poor old Admiral Nelson tooraloo.

Well the Russians and the Yanks

With lunar probes they play

And I hear the French are trying hard

To make up lost headway

But now the Irish join the race

We've got an astronaut up in space

Ireland, boys is now a world power too

So let's sing our celebration,

It's a service to the nation,

So poor Admiral Nelson tooraloo.

See also

• Dublin statues and their nicknames

References

1. Template:Note 'The Centre of the North City' North Dublin (1909) Cosgrave, Dillon
2. Template:Note Lemass tried to topple Nelson in favour of Saint
3. Template:Note Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA</em> by Richard English, Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0195166051
   
4. Template:Note The Irish Independent, March 11, 2003
5. Template:Note The Irish Times October 4, 2001
6. Template:Note Margaret Gowen & Co Ltd. Dedication Plaque
7. Template:Note The Irish Independent, September 22, 2000eo:Nelsona Piliero