Nelson’s Pillar

For the similarly named monument in London, seeNelson’s Column.

Nelson’s Pillar (also known as theNelson Pillar or sim-ply The Pillar) was a large granite column capped bya statue of Horatio Nelson, in the centre of O'ConnellStreet (until 1924 Sackville Street) in Dublin, Ireland.Completed in 1809 when Ireland was part of the UnitedKingdom, it survived until March 1966, when it wasseverely damaged by explosives planted by Irish republi-cans. Its remnants were later destroyed by the Irish Army.The decision to build the monument was taken by DublinCorporation in the euphoria following Nelson’s victory atthe Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The original design byWilliam Wilkins was greatly modified by Francis John-ston, on grounds of cost. The statue was sculpted byThomas Kirk. From its opening on 29 October 1809the Pillar was a popular tourist attraction, but provokedaesthetic and political controversy from the outset . Aprominent city centre monument honouring an English-man rankled as nationalist sentiment grew, and through-out the 19th century there were calls for it to be removed,or replaced with a memorial to an Irish hero.Parts of central Dublin were destroyed during the 1916Easter Rising, but the Pillar remained unscathed. It re-mained in the city as Ireland became an independent FreeState in 1922, and a republic in 1949.. The chief legalbarrier to its removal was the trust created at the Pillar’sinception, the terms of which gave the trustees a duty inperpetuity to preserve the monument. Successive Irishgovernments failed to deliver legislation overriding thetrust. Although influential literary figures such as JamesJoyce, W.B. Yeats and Oliver St John Gogarty defendedthe Pillar on historical and cultural grounds, pressure forits removal intensified in the years preceding the 50th an-niversary of the Rising, and its sudden demise was, onthe whole, well received by the public. Although it waswidely believed that the action was the work of the IRA,the police were unable to identify any of those responsi-ble.After years of debate and numerous proposals, the sitewas finally occupied in 2003 by the Spire of Dublin, aslim needle-like structure rising almost three times theheight of the Pillar. In 2010 a former republican ac-tivist gave a radio interview in which he admitted plant-ing the explosives in 1966, but after questioning him thepolice decided not to take action. Relics of the Pillarare found in Dublin museums and appear as decorative

stonework elsewhere, and its memory is preserved in nu-merous works of Irish literature.

1 Background

1.1 Sackville Street and Blakeney

William Blakeney, whose Sackville Street statue preceded Nel-son’s

The redevelopment of Dublin north of the River Liffeybegan in the early 18th century, largely through the en-terprise of the property speculator Luke Gardiner.[1] Hisbest-known work was the transformation in the 1740s ofa narrow lane called Drogheda Street, which he demol-ished and turned into a broad thoroughfare lined withlarge and imposing town houses. He renamed it SackvilleStreet, in honour of Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset,who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1731 to1737 and from 1751 to 1755.[2] After Gardiner’s deathin 1755 Dublin’s growth continued, with many fine pub-lic buildings and grand squares, the city’s status mag-nified by the presence of the Parliament of Ireland forsix months of the year.[3] The Acts of Union of 1800,which united Ireland and Great Britain under a singleWestminster polity, ended the Irish parliament and pre-

1

2 2 INCEPTION, DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

saged a period of decline for the city.[4] The historianTristram Hunt writes: "[T]he capital’s dynamism van-ished, absenteeism returned and the big houses lost theirpatrons”.[4]

The first monument in Sackville Street was built in 1759in the location where the Nelson Pillar would eventu-ally stand. The subject was William Blakeney, 1st BaronBlakeney, a Limerick-born army officer whose career ex-tended overmore than 60 years and endedwith his surren-der to the French after the Siege of Minorca in 1756.[5]A brass statue sculpted by John van Nost the younger wasunveiled on St Patrick’s Day, 17March 1759.[6][n 1] DonalFallon, in his history of the Pillar, states that almost fromits inception the Blakeney statue was a target for vandal-ism. Its fate is uncertain; Fallon records that it might havebeen melted down for cannon,[7] but it had certainly beenremoved by 1805.[8]

1.2 Trafalgar

Nelson’s death aboard HMS Victory, 21 October 1805

On 21 October 1805, a Royal Naval fleet commandedby Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeated the combinedfleets of the French and Spanish navies in the Battle ofTrafalgar. At the height of the battle Nelson was mortallywounded on board his flagship, HMS Victory; by the timehe died later that day, victory was assured.[9]

Nelson had been hailed in Dublin seven years earlier, af-ter the Battle of the Nile, as defender of the Harp andCrown, the respective symbols of Ireland and Britain.[10]When news of Trafalgar reached the city on 8 Novem-ber, there were similar scenes of patriotic celebration,together with a desire that the fallen hero should becommemorated.[11] The mercantile classes had particu-lar reason to be grateful for a victory that restored thefreedom of the high seas and removed the threat of aFrench invasion.[12]Many of the city’s population had rel-atives who had fought in the battle: up to one-third ofthe sailors in Nelson’s fleet were from Ireland, includingaround 400 from Dublin itself. In his short account ofthe Pillar, Dennis Kennedy considers that Nelson wouldhave been regarded in the city as a hero, not just among

the Protestant Ascendancy but by many Catholics amongthe rising middle and professional classes.[13]

The first step towards a permanent memorial to Nelsonwas taken on 18 November 1805 by the city aldermen,who after sending a message of congratulation to KingGeorge III, agreed that the erection of a statue wouldform a suitable tribute to Nelson’s memory.[14][15] On 28November, after a public meeting had supported this sen-timent, a “Nelson committee” was established, chaired bythe Lord Mayor. It contained four of the city’s Westmin-ster MPs, alongside other city notables including ArthurGuinness, the son of the brewery founder.[16] The com-mittee’s initial tasks were to decide precisely what formthe monument should take and where it should be put.They had also to raise the funds to pay for it.[17]

2 Inception, design and construc-tion

At its first meeting the Nelson committee established apublic subscription, and early in 1806 invited artists andarchitects to submit design proposals for a monument.[18]No specifications were provided, but the contempo-rary European vogue in commemorative architecture wasfor the classical form, typified by Trajan’s Column inRome.[17] Monumental columns, or “pillars of victory”,were uncommon in Ireland at the time; the CumberlandColumn in Birr, County Offaly, erected in 1747, was arare exception.[19] From the entries submitted, the Nel-son committee’s choice was that of a young English ar-chitect, William Wilkins, then in the early stages of adistinguished career.[n 2] Wilkins’s proposals envisaged atall Doric column on a plinth, surmounted by a sculptedRoman galley.[21]

The choice of the Sackville Street site was not unani-mous. The Wide Streets Commissioners were worriedabout traffic congestion, and argued for a riverside lo-cation visible from the sea.[12] Another suggestion wasfor a seaside position, perhaps Howth Head at the en-trance to Dublin Bay. The recent presence of the Blak-eney statue in Sackville Street, and a desire to arrest thestreet’s decline in the post-parliamentary years, were fac-tors that may have influenced the final selection of thatsite which, Kennedy says, was the preferred choice of theLord Lieutenant.[22]

BY THE BLESSING OF ALMIGHTY GOD, ToCommemorate the Transcendent Heroic Achieve-ments of the Right Honourable HORATIO LORDVISCOUNT NELSON, Duke of Bronti in Sicily,Vice-Admiral of the White Squadron of HisMajesty’s Fleet, Who fell gloriously in the Battle offCAPE TRAFALGAR, on the 21st Day of Octo-ber 1805; when he obtained for his Country a VIC-TORYover the COMBINEDFLEETOFFRANCE

3

AND SPAIN, unparalleled in Naval History. Thisfirst STONE of a Triumphal PILLAR was laid byHIS GRACE CHARLES DUKE OF RICHMONDand LENNOX, Lord Lieutenant General and Gen-eral Governor of Ireland, on the 15th Day of Febru-ary in the year of our Lord, 1808. and in the48th Year of our most GRACIOUS SOVEREIGNGEORGE THE THIRD, in the presence of theCommittee appointed by the Subscribers for erect-ing this monument.

Wording of memorial plaque laid with the foundationstone, 15 February 1808 [23]

By mid-1807, fundraising was proving difficult; sumsraised at that point were well short of the likely cost oferecting Wilkins’s column. The committee informed thearchitect with regret that “means were not placed in theirhands to enable them to gratify him, as well as them-selves, by executing his design precisely as he had givenit”.[24] They employed Francis Johnston, architect to theCity Board of Works, to make cost-cutting adjustmentsto Wilkins’s scheme.[25][n 3] Johnston simplified the de-sign, substituting a large functional block or pedestal forWilkins’s delicate plinth, and replacing the proposed gal-ley with a statue of Nelson.[24] Thomas Kirk, a sculptorfrom Cork, was commissioned to provide the statue, tobe fashioned from Portland stone.[27][28]

By December 1807 the fund stood at £3,827, farshort of the estimated £6,500 required to finance theproject.[23][n 4] Nevertheless, by the beginning of 1808 thecommittee felt confident enough to begin the work, andorganised the laying of the foundation stone. This cere-mony took place on 15 February 1808—the day followingthe anniversary of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of CapeSt Vincent in 1797[30]—amid much pomp, in the pres-ence of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond,along with various civic dignitaries and city notables.[31]A memorial plaque eulogising Nelson’s Trafalgar victorywas attached to the stone. The committee continuedto raise money as construction proceeded;[30] when theproject was complete in the autumn of 1809, costs to-talled £6,856, but contributions had reached £7,138, pro-viding the committee with a surplus of £282.[32]

When finished, the monument complete with its statuerose to a height of 134 feet (40.8 m).[n 5] The four sidesof the pedestal were engraved with the names and datesof Nelson’s greatest victories.[32][n 6] A spiral stairway of168 steps ascended the hollow interior of the column, to aviewing platform immediately beneath the statue.[35] Ac-cording to the committee’s published report, 22,090 cu-bic feet (626 m3) of black limestone and 7,310 cubic feet(207 m3) of granite had been used to build the columnand its pedestal.[36] The Pillar opened to the public on 21October 1809, on the fourth anniversary of the Battle ofTrafalgar; for ten pre-decimal pence,[32][n 7] visitors couldclimb to a viewing platform just below the statue, and en-joy what an early report describes as “a superb panoramic

view of the city, the country and the fine bay”.[34][n 8]

3 History 1809–1966

3.1 1809–1916

The Pillar quickly became a popular tourist attraction;Kennedy writes that “for the next 157 years its ascentwas a must on every visitor’s list”.[38] Yet from the be-ginning there were criticisms, on both political and aes-thetic grounds. The September 1809 issue of the IrishMonthly Magazine, edited by the revolution-mindedWal-ter “Watty” Cox,[39] reported that “our independence hasbeen wrested from us, not by the arms of France but bythe gold of England. The statue of Nelson records theglory of a mistress and the transformation of our senateinto a discount office”.[12] In an early (1818) history of thecity of Dublin, the writers express awe at the scale of themonument, but are critical of several of its features: itsproportions are described as “ponderous”, the pedestal as“unsightly” and the column itself as “clumsy”.[33] How-ever, the Hibernian Magazine thought the statue was agood likeness of its subject, and that the Pillar’s positionin the centre of the wide street gave the eye a focal pointin what was otherwise “wastes of pavements”.[40]

Lower Sackville Street and the Pillar depicted by William HenryBartlett in the early 1840s, around the time of Thackeray’s visit

By 1830, rising nationalist sentiment in Ireland made itlikely that the Pillar was “the Ascendancy’s last hurrah”—Kennedy observes that it probably could not have beenbuilt at any later date.[41] Nevertheless, the monument of-ten attracted favourable comment from visitors; in 1842the writer William Makepeace Thackeray noted Nelson“upon a stone-pillar” in the middle of the “exceedinglybroad and handsome” Sackville Street: “The Post Officeis on his right hand (only it is cut off); and on his left, 'Gre-sham’s' and the 'Imperial Hotel' ".[42] A few years later,themonument was a source of pride to some citizens, whodubbed it “Dublin’s Glory” when Queen Victoria visitedthe city in 1849.[12]

Between 1840 and 1843 Nelson’s Column was erected inLondon’s Trafalgar Square. With an overall height of 170

4 3 HISTORY 1809–1966

feet (52 m) it was taller than its Dublin equivalent and, at£47,000, muchmore costly to erect.[43][n 9] It has no inter-nal staircase or viewing platform.[44] The London columnwas the subject of an attack during the Fenian dynamitecampaign inMay 1884, when a quantity of explosives wasplaced at its base but failed to detonate.[43]

In 1853 the queen attended the Dublin Great IndustrialExhibition, where a city plan was displayed that envis-aged the removal of the Pillar.[12] This proved impossi-ble, as since 1811 legal responsibility for the Pillar hadbeen vested in a trust,[45] under the terms of which thetrustees were required “to embellish and uphold the mon-ument in perpetuation of the object for which it wassubscribed”.[46] Any action to remove or resite the Pil-lar, or replace the statue, required the passage of an Actof Parliament in London; Dublin Corporation (the citygovernment) had no authority in the matter.[47] No actionfollowed the city plan suggestion, but the following yearssaw regular attempts to remove the monument.[12] A pro-posal was made in 1876 by Alderman Peter McSwiney,a former Lord Mayor,[48] to replace the “unsightly struc-ture” with a memorial to the recently deceased Sir JohnGray, who had done much to provide Dublin with a cleanwater supply. The Corporation was unable to advancethis idea.[49]

Design for the new 1894 entrance porch

In 1882 the Moore Street Market and Dublin City Im-provement Act was passed by the Westminster parlia-ment, overriding the trust and giving the Corporation au-thority to resite the Pillar, but subject to a strict timetable,within which the city authorities found it impossible toact. The Act lapsed and the Pillar remained;[50] a simi-

lar attempt, with the same result, was made in 1891.[12]Not all Dubliners favoured demolition; some businessesconsidered the Pillar to be the city’s focal point, and thetramway company petitioned for its retention as it markedthe central tram terminus.[51] “In many ways”, says Fal-lon, “the pillar had become part of the fabric of thecity”.[52] Kennedy writes: “A familiar and very large ifrather scruffy piece of the city’s furniture, it was The Pil-lar, Dublin’s Pillar rather than Nelson’s Pillar ... it wasalso an outing, an experience”.[53] The Dublin sculptorJohn Hughes invited students at the Metropolitan Schoolof Art to “admire the elegance and dignity” of Kirk’sstatue, “and the beauty of the silhouette”.[54]

The year 1894 saw some significant alterations to the Pil-lar’s fabric. The original entry on the west side, wherebyvisitors entered the pedestal by a flight of steps takingthem down below street level, was replaced by a newground level entrance on the south side, complete with agrand porch. The whole monument was surrounded byheavy iron railings.[32][n 10] In the new century, despitethe growing nationalism within Dublin—80 per cent ofthe Corporation’s councillors were nationalists of somedescription—the pillar was liberally decorated with flagsand streamers to mark the 1905 Trafalgar centenary.[57]The changing political atmosphere had long been sig-nalled by the arrival in Sackville Street of further mon-uments, all celebrating distinctively Irish heroes, in whatthe historian Yvonne Whelan describes as defiance ofthe British Government, a “challenge in stone”. Be-tween the 1860s and 1911, Nelson was joined by mon-uments to Daniel O'Connell, William Smith O'Brien andCharles Stewart Parnell, as well as Sir John Gray and thetemperance campaigner Father Matthew.[58] Meanwhile,in 1861, after decades of construction, the WellingtonMonument in Dublin’s Phoenix Park was completed, thefoundation stone having been laid in 1817.[59] This vastobelisk, 220 feet (67 m) high and 120 feet (37 m) squareat the base,[60] honoured Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke ofWellington, Dublin-born and a former Chief Secretaryfor Ireland.[61] Unlike the Pillar, Wellington’s obelisk hasattracted little controversy and has not been the subjectof physical attacks.[62]

3.2 Easter Rising, April 1916

On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, units of the Irish Vol-unteers and the Irish Citizen Army seized several promi-nent buildings and streets in central Dublin, including theGeneral Post Office (GPO) in Sackville Street. They setup headquarters at the GPO where they declared an IrishRepublic under a provisional government.[63] One of thefirst recorded actions of the Easter Rising occurred inthe vicinity of the Pillar when lancers from the nearbyMarlborough Street barracks, sent to investigate the dis-turbance, were fired on from the GPO. They retired inconfusion, leaving four soldiers and two horses dead.[64]

During the days that followed, Sackville Street and partic-

3.3 In an independent Ireland 5

Sackville Street after the Rising, with the intact Pillar in the back-ground

ularly the area around the Pillar became a battleground.According to some histories, insurgents attempted toblow up the Pillar. The accounts are unconfirmed andwere disputed by many that fought in the Rising,[65] onthe grounds that the Pillar’s large base provided themwith useful cover as they moved to and from other rebelpositions.[66] By Thursday night, British artillery fire hadset much of Sackville Street ablaze, but according to thewriter Peter De Rosa’s account: “On his pillar, Nelsonsurveyed it all serenely, as though he were lit up by athousand lamps”.[67] The statue was visible against thefiery backdrop from as far as Killiney, 9 miles (14 km)away.[68]

By Saturday, when the provisional government finallysurrendered, many of the Sackville Street buildings be-tween the Pillar and the Liffey had been destroyed orbadly damaged, including the Imperial Hotel that Thack-eray had admired.[69][70] Of the GPO, only the façade re-mained; against the tide of opinion Bernard Shaw saidthe demolition of the city’s classical architecture scarcelymattered: “What does matter is the Liffey slums have notbeen demolished”.[71] An account in a NewYork newspa-per reported that the Pillar had been lost in the destructionof the street,[72] but it had sustained only minor damage,chiefly bullet marks on the column and statue itself—oneshot is said to have taken off Nelson’s nose.[73]

3.3 In an independent Ireland

After the Anglo-Irish war of 1919–21 and the treaty thatfollowed, Ireland was partitioned; Dublin became thecapital of the Irish Free State, a Dominion within theBritish Commonwealth of Nations.[74] From December1922, when the Free State was inaugurated, the Pillar be-came an issue for the Irish rather than the British gov-ernment. In 1923, when Sackville Street was again inruins during the Irish Civil War,[75] The Irish Builder andEngineer magazine called the original siting of the Pillara “blunder” and asked for its removal,[76] a view echoedby the Dublin Citizens Association.[77] The poet WilliamButler Yeats, who had become a member of the Irish

Senate, favoured its re-erection elsewhere, but thought itshould not, as some wished, be destroyed, because “thelife and work of the people who built it are part of ourtradition.”[12]

Sackville Street was renamed O'Connell Street in1924.[78][n 11] The following year theDublinMetropolitanPolice and the Dublin Civic Survey demanded legislationto allow the Pillar’s removal, without success.[77] Pres-sure continued, and in 1926 The Manchester Guardianreported that the Pillar was to be taken down, “as it wasa hindrance to modern traffic”.[79] Requests for action—removal, destruction or the replacement of the statue withthat of an Irish hero—continued up to the Second WorldWar and beyond; the main stumbling blocks remainedthe trustees’ strict interpretation of the terms of the trust,and the unwillingness of successive Irish governments totake legislative action.[77][80] In 1936 the magazine of theultra-nationalist Blueshirts movement remarked that thisinactivity showed a failure in the national spirit: “The con-queror is gone, but the scars which he left remain, and thevictim will not even try to remove them”.[81]

“Man and boy I have lived in Dublin, on and off, for 68years. When I was a young fellow we didn't talk aboutNelson’s Column or Nelson’s Pillar, we spoke of the Pil-lar, and everyone knew what we meant”.Thomas Bodkin, 1955[82]

By 1949 the Irish Free State had evolved into the Republicof Ireland and left the British Commonwealth,[83] butnot all Irish opinion favoured the removal of the Pillar.That year the architectural historian John Harvey calledit “a grand work”, and argued that without it, “O'ConnellStreet would lose much of its vitality”.[84] Most of thepressure to get rid of it, he said, came from “traffic mani-acs who ... fail to visualise the chaos which would resultfrom creating a through current of traffic at this point”.[84]In a 1955 radio broadcast Thomas Bodkin, former direc-tor of the National Gallery of Ireland, praised not onlythe monument, but Nelson himself: “He was a man ofextraordinary gallantry. He lost his eye fighting bravely,and his arm in a similar fashion”.[82]

On 29 October 1955, a group of nine students fromUniversity College Dublin obtained keys from the Pil-lar’s custodian and locked themselves inside, with an as-sortment of equipment including flame throwers. Fromthe gallery they hung a poster of Kevin Barry, a DublinIrish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer executed by theBritish during the War of Independence. A crowd gath-ered below, and began to sing the Irish rebel song "KevinBarry". Eventually members of the Gardaí (Irish police)broke into the Pillar and ended the demonstration. No ac-tion was taken against the students, whose principal pur-pose, the Gardaí claimed, was publicity.[85]

In 1956, members of the Fianna Fáil party, then in op-position, proposed that the statue be replaced by one ofRobert Emmett, Protestant leader of an abortive rebel-lion in 1803. They thought that such a gesture might

6 4 DESTRUCTION

inspire Protestants in Northern Ireland to fight for a re-united Ireland.[86] In the North the possibility of disman-tling and re-erecting the monument in Belfast was raisedin the Stormont parliament, but the initiative failed to gainthe support of the Northern Ireland government.[87]

In 1959 a new Fianna Fáil government under SeanLemass deferred the question of the Pillar’s removal onthe grounds of cost; five years later Lemass agreed to“look at” the question of replacing Nelson’s statue withone of Patrick Pearse, the leader of the Easter Rising,in time for the 50th anniversary of the Rising in 1966.[88]An offer from the Irish-born American trade union leaderMike Quill to finance the removal of the Pillar was nottaken up, and as the anniversary approached, Nelson re-mained in place.[87]

4 Destruction

The pillar on the morning of 8 March 1966

Shortly after 1:30 on the morning of 8 March 1966, apowerful explosion destroyed the upper portion of the Pil-lar and brought Nelson’s statue crashing to the groundamid hundreds of tons of rubble.[89] O'Connell Streetwas almost deserted at the time, although a dance inthe nearby Hotel Metropole's ballroom was about toend and bring crowds on to the street.[12] There wereno casualties—a taxi-driver parked close by had a nar-row escape—and damage to property was relatively lightgiven the strength of the blast.[90] What was left of thePillar was a jagged stump, 70 feet (21 m) high.[12]

In the first government response to the action the Justiceminister, Brian Lenihan, condemned what he describedas “an outrage which was planned and committed withoutany regard to the lives of the citizens”.[91] This responsewas considered “tepid” by The Irish Times, whose edito-rial deemed the attack “a direct blow to the prestige of thestate and the authority of the government”.[91] Kennedysuggests that government anger was mainly directed atwhat they considered a distraction from the official 50thanniversary celebrations of the Rising.[89]

“There was an air of inevitability about Horatio Nelson’s

eventual demise; King William of Orange, King GeorgeII and Viscount Gough in the Phoenix Park had all fallenvictim to republican bombings, while Queen Victoria hadbeen rather unceremoniously dumped from her vantagepoint in Leinster House, removed on her back throughthe front gates.”Donal Fallon: “Dispelling the myths about the bombingof Nelson’s Pillar”[92]

The absence of the pillar was regretted by some whofelt the city had lost one of its most prominent land-marks. The Irish Literary Association was anxious that,whatever future steps were taken, the lettering on thepedestal should be preserved; the Irish Times reportedthat the Royal Irish Academy of Music was consider-ing legal measures to prevent removal of the remainingstump.[12] Reactions among the general public were rela-tively light-hearted, typified by the numerous songs in-spired by the incident. These included the immenselypopular "Up Went Nelson", set to the tune of "The Bat-tle Hymn of the Republic" and performed by a groupof Belfast schoolteachers, which remained at the top ofthe Irish charts for eight weeks.[93] An American news-paper reported that the mood in the city was one of gai-ety, with shouts of “Nelson has lost his last battle!"[94]Some accounts relate that the Irish president, Éamon deValera, phoned The Irish Press to suggest the headline:“British Admiral Leaves Dublin By Air”[95]—accordingto the senator and presidential candidate David Norris,“the only recorded instance of humour in that lugubriousfigure”.[96]

Lettering from Nelson’s Pillar in the Butler HouseWalled Gardenin 2009

The Pillar’s fate was sealed when Dublin Corporation is-sued a “dangerous building” notice. The trustees agreedthat the stump should be removed.[12] A last-minute re-quest by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Irelandfor an injunction to delay the demolition on planninggrounds was rejected by Justice Thomas Teevan.[97] On14 March the Army destroyed the stump by a controlledexplosion, watched at a safe distance by a crowd who, thepress reported, “raised a resounding cheer”.[98] There wasa scramble for souvenirs, andmany parts of the stonework

5.2 Replacements 7

were taken from the scene. Some of these relics, in-cluding Nelson’s head, eventually found their way intomuseums;[n 12] parts of the lettered stonework from thepedestal are displayed in the grounds of the Butler Househotel in Kilkenny, while smaller remnants were used todecorate private gardens.[100] Contemporary and subse-quent accounts record that the army’s explosion causedmore damage than the first, but this, Fallon says, is amyth; damage claims arising from the second explosionamounted to less than a quarter of the sum claimed as aresult of the original blast.[101][102]

5 Aftermath

5.1 Investigations

It was initially assumed that the monument was destroyedby the IRA. The Guardian reported on 9 March that sixmen had been arrested and questioned, but their identi-ties were not revealed and there were no charges.[103][104]An IRA spokesman denied involvement, stating that theyhad no interest in demolishing mere symbols of foreigndomination: “We are interested in the destruction of thedomination itself”.[105] In the absence of any leads, ru-mours suggested that the Basque separatist movementETA might be responsible, perhaps as part of a trainingexercise with an Irish republican splinter group; in themid-1960s the explosives expertise of ETA was generallyacknowledged.[106]

No further informationwas forthcoming until 2000, whenduring a Raidió Teilifís Éireann interview a former IRAmember, Liam Sutcliffe claimed he had placed the bombwhich detonated in the Pillar.[95][107] In the 1950s Sut-cliffe was associated with a group of dissident volunteersled by Joe Christle (1927–98), who had been expelledfrom the IRA in 1956 for “recklessness”.[108] In early1966 Sutcliffe learned that Christle’s group was planning“OperationHumptyDumpty”, an attack on the Pillar, andoffered his services. According to Sutcliffe, on 28 Febru-ary he placed a bomb within the Pillar, timed to go offin the early hours of the next morning.[107] The explo-sive was a mixture of gelignite and ammonal.[95] It failedto detonate; Sutcliffe says that he returned early the nextmorning, recovered the device and redesigned its timer.On 7 March, shortly before the Pillar closed for the day,he climbed the inner stairway and placed the refurbishedbomb near to the top of the shaft before going home. Helearned of the success of his mission the next day, he says,having slept undisturbed through the night.[107] Followinghis revelations, Sutcliffe was questioned by the police butnot charged. He did not name others involved in the ac-tion, apart from Christle and his brother.[95]

5.2 Replacements

On 29 April 1969 the Irish parliament passed the NelsonPillar Act, terminating the Pillar Trust and vesting own-ership of the site in Dublin Corporation. The trustees re-ceived £21,170 in compensation for the Pillar’s destruc-tion, and a further sum for loss of income.[109] In the de-bate, Senator Owen Sheehy-Skeffington argued that thePillar had been capable of repair and should have beenre-assembled and rebuilt.[110]

The Spire of Dublin, erected in 2003, viewed from Henry Street

For more than twenty years the site stood empty, whilevarious campaigns sought to fill the space. In 1970 theArthur Griffith Society suggested a monument to ArthurGriffith, founder of Sinn Féin, and Pearse, whose cente-nary would fall in 1979, was the subject of several pro-posals. None of these schemes were accepted by the Cor-poration. A request in 1987 by the Dublin Metropoli-tan Streets Commission that the Pillar be rebuilt—with adifferent statue—was likewise rejected.[111] In 1988, aspart of the city’s 1,000th anniversary celebrations, theSmurfit Millennium Fountain was erected close to thesite. This was commissioned by a Dublin businessmanMichael Smurfit in memory of his father; it incorpo-rated a bronze statue of a woman, sculpted by ÉamonnO'Doherty. The monument, known colloquially as theAnna Livia, was not universally appreciated; O'Doherty’sfellow-sculptor Edward Delaney called it an “atrociouseyesore”.[112][n 13]

1988 saw the launch of the Pillar Project, aimed at en-couraging artists and architects to bring forward newideas for an appropriate permanent memorial to replaceNelson. Suggestions included a 110 metres (360 ft) flag-pole, a triumphal arch modelled on the Paris Arc de Tri-omphe, and a “Tower of Light” with a platform that wouldrestore Nelson’s view over the city.[115] In 1997 DublinCorporation announced a formal design competition fora monument to mark the new millennium in 2000. Thewinning entry was Ian Ritchie's Spire of Dublin, a plain,needle-like structure rising 120 metres (390 ft) from thestreet.[116] The design was approved; on 22 January 2003it was completed, despite some political and artistic op-

8 8 NOTES AND REFERENCES

position. During the excavations preceding the Spire’sconstruction, the foundation stone of the Nelson Pillarwas recovered. Press stories that a time capsule contain-ing valuable coins had also been discovered fascinated thepublic for a while, but proved illusory.[117]

6 Cultural references

“Before Nelson’s Pillar trams slowed, shunted, changedtrolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey,Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure ... Sandymount Green,Rathmines, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold’sCross. The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company’stimekeeper bawled them off.”James Joyce: Ulysses. Section 7: “In the Heart of theHibernian Metropolis”.[118]

The destruction of the Pillar brought a temporary glutof popular songs, including "Nelson’s Farewell", by TheDubliners, in which Nelson’s airborne demise is pre-sented as Ireland’s contribution to the space race.[93] Dur-ing its more than 150 years, the Pillar was an integralif controversial part of Dublin life, and was often re-flected in Irish literature of the period. James Joyce'snovel Ulysses (1922) is a meticulous depiction of the cityon a single day, 16 July 1904. At the base of the Pil-lar trams from all parts of the city come and go; mean-while the character Stephen Dedalus fantasises a sceneinvolving two elderly spinsters, who climb the steps to theviewing gallery where they eat plums and spit the stonesdown on those below, while gazing up at “the one-handledadulterer”.[119]

Joyce shared Yeats’s view that Ireland’s association withEngland was an essential element in a shared history,and asked: “Tell me why you think I ought to changethe conditions that gave Ireland and me a shape and adestiny?"[120] Oliver St JohnGogarty, in his literarymem-oir As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, considers thePillar “the grandest thing we have in Dublin”, where “thestatue in whiter stone gazed forever south towards Trafal-gar and the Nile”.[121] That Pillar, says Gogarty, “marksthe end of a civilization, the culmination of the greatperiod of eighteenth century Dublin”.[121] Yeats’s 1927poem “The Three Monuments” has Parnell, Nelson andO'Connell on their respective monuments, mocking Ire-land’s post-independence leaders for their rigid moralityand lack of courage, the obverse of the qualities of the“three old rascals”.[122] A later writer, Brendan Behan,in his Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1965) wrote froma nationalist perspective that Ireland owed Nelson noth-ing and that Dublin’s poor regarded the Pillar as “a gibeat their own helplessness in their own country”.[123] Inhis poem “Dublin” (1939), written as the remaining ves-tiges of British overlordship were being removed fromIreland, Louis MacNeice envisages “Nelson on his pillar/Watching his world collapse”.[124][125] Austin Clarke's

1957 poem “Nelson’s Pillar, Dublin” scorns the variousschemes to remove the monument and concludes “Lethim watch the sky/ With those who rule. Stone eye/ Andtelescopes can prove/ Our blessings are above”.[126][125]

7 See also

• Monuments and memorials to Horatio Nelson, 1stViscount Nelson

• List of public art in Dublin

8 Notes and references

8.1 Notes

[1] Most unusually for the subject of a statue, Blakeney wasstill alive at the time—he died in September 1761.[6]

[2] In his later career Wilkins was responsible for the de-sign of numerous major London buildings, including theNational Gallery and University College London, and of anumber of colleges of the University of Cambridge.[20]

[3] Johnston’s later Dublin commissions included the GeneralPost Office and additions to the Vice-regal Lodge.[26]

[4] £6,500 in 1805 equates to about £500,000 in 2016, usingthe GDP deflator for capital projects.[29]

[5] The recorded heights (rounded) of the various compo-nents were: pedestal 30 ft 1 in.; column and capital 78 ft3 in.; epistilion (the base for the statue) 12 ft 6 in.; statue13 ft; total 134 ft 3 in.[33]

[6] The inscriptions on each side were as follows: “ST. VIN-CENT XIV FEBRUARY MDCCXCVII” (west); “THENILE I AUGUST MDCCXCVIII” (north); “COPEN-HAGEN II APRIL MDCCCI” (east); “TRAFALGARXXI OCTOBER MDCCCV” (south). These refer to thefollowing battles and their dates: Battle of Cape St Vin-cent (14 February 1797); Battle of the Nile (1–3 August1798); Battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801); and Battleof Trafalgar (21 October 1805).[34]

[7] 10 pre-decimal pence in 1809 equates to £2.70 in 2016,based on retail price index.[29]

[8] At almost the same time as the Dublin pillar was be-ing completed, the city of Montreal in Canada erected acolumn and statue of Nelson. Although largely French-speaking, the inhabitants of Montreal detested the FrenchRevolution and Napoleon and regarded Nelson as a hero.In more recent times theMontreal monument has survivedattempts by Quebec separatists to have it removed.[37]

[9] £47,000 in 1843 equates to about £5.3 million in 2016,using the GDP deflator for capital projects.[29]

8.2 Citations 9

[10] These changes were made by Dublin architect GeorgePalmer Beater (1850–1928).[55] The porch, with Nelson’sname over the entrance, was made from “chiselled gran-ite lined internally with white enamelled brick”. Gildingwas added to the incised inscriptions on the pedestal andto Nelson’s name.[56]

[11] The change had first been proposed by Dublin Corpora-tion in 1884, but had been rejected at the time by thestreet’s residents.[78]

[12] About ten days after the initial explosion Nelson’s headwas stolen from a corporation yard by students from theNational College of Art and Design, as a fund-raisingstunt. The head was exhibited, for a fee, at various loca-tions including stage performance by The Dubliners andThe Clancy Brothers. It crossed the Irish Sea, and wasrented for display in a London antique shop. It was re-turned to Ireland in September 1966, ultimately finding ahome in the Dublin City Library and Archive in PearseStreet.[99][95]

[13] A popular name for the Anna Livia was “the floozie in thejacuzzi”. In 2001, during regeneration work in O'ConnellStreet, the fountain was demolished and the statue re-moved, eventually to be re-sited in the Croppies AcreMemorial Park.[113][114]

8.2 Citations[1] Andrews and Coleman 2009.

[2] Hopkins 2002, p. 114.

[3] Kilfeather 2005, p. 54.

[4] Hunt 2014, p. 137.

[5] Stephens and Harding 2008.

[6] Fallon 2014, pp. 5–8.

[7] Fallon 2014, p. 8.

[8] Kennedy 2013, pp. 7–8.

[9] Rodger 2009.

[10] Pakenham 1992, p. 337.

[11] Fallon 2014, p. 24.

[12] Ó Riain 1998.

[13] Kennedy 2013, pp. 25–27.

[14] Henchy 1948, p. 53.

[15] Fallon 2014, p. 26.

[16] Henchy 1948, p. 54.

[17] Kennedy 2013, pp. 3–4.

[18] Fallon 2014, pp. 27–28.

[19] Contae Uíbh Fhailí County Council, February 2009.

[20] Liscombe 2009.

[21] Kennedy 2013, p. 6.

[22] Kennedy 2013, pp. 6–8.

[23] Kennedy 2013, p. 15.

[24] Kennedy 2013, pp. 10–11.

[25] Murphy 2010, p. 11.

[26] Cust and Bagshaw 2008.

[27] Henchy 1948, p. 59.

[28] Kilfeather 2005, p. 260.

[29] MeasuringWorth 2016.

[30] Kennedy 2013, pp. 16–17.

[31] Murphy 2010, p. 9.

[32] Henchy 1948, pp. 56–57.

[33] Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh 1818, pp. 1102–03.

[34] Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh 1818, p. 1101.

[35] Fallon 2014, p. 33.

[36] Fallon 2014, p. 32.

[37] Kennedy 2013, pp. 20–21, 29–30.

[38] Kennedy 2013, p. 20.

[39] Webb: A Compendium of Irish Biography 1878.

[40] Henchy 1948, p. 60.

[41] Kennedy 2013, p. 30.

[42] Thackeray 1911, pp. 22–23.

[43] Fallon 2014, p. 40.

[44] Kennedy 2013, p. 13.

[45] Kennedy 2013, p. 18.

[46] Kennedy 2013, p. 47.

[47] Kennedy 2013, p. 37.

[48] Dublin Council (Lord Mayors).

[49] Fallon 2014, p. 42.

[50] Kennedy 2013, p. 38.

[51] Henchy 1948, p. 61.

[52] Fallon 2014, p. 44.

[53] Kennedy 2013, p. 41.

[54] Murphy 2010, p. 12.

[55] Dictionary of Irish Architects.

[56] archiseek: Lost Buildings of Ireland.

[57] Fallon 2014, pp. 45–46.

[58] Whelan 2014, p. 94.

10 8 NOTES AND REFERENCES

[59] Garnett 1952, pp. 54 and 61.

[60] Casey 2005, p. 308.

[61] Fallon2014, p. 51.

[62] Independent.ie. 26 August 2003.

[63] Fallon 2014, pp. 53–54.

[64] Townshend 2006, p. 184.

[65] Fallon 2014, pp. 55–56.

[66] Kennedy 2013, pp. 43–44.

[67] De Rosa 1990, p. 350.

[68] De Rosa 1990, p. 351.

[69] Townshend 2006, p. 266.

[70] De Rosa 1990, pp. 358–59.

[71] Shaw 1916, p. 6.

[72] Fallon 2014, p. 61.

[73] Fallon 2014, p. 57.

[74] “The Partition of Ireland”.

[75] Fallon 2014, p. 65.

[76] The Irish Builder and Engineer 30 June 1923, p. 497.

[77] Kennedy 2013, pp. 44–45.

[78] Casey 2005, p. 212.

[79] The Manchester Guardian 26 March 1926, p. 9.

[80] Fallon 2014, pp. 68–69, 71–72.

[81] Fallon 2014, pp. 70–71, quoting from The Blueshirt, 1March 1935.

[82] Fallon 2014, p. 77.

[83] De Rosa 1990, p. 505.

[84] Harvey 1949, p. 31.

[85] Fallon 2014, pp. 87–89.

[86] Fallon 2014, p. 72.

[87] Fallon 2014, pp. 74–75.

[88] Kennedy 2013, pp. 47–48.

[89] Kennedy 2013, pp. 50–51.

[90] Fallon 2014, p. 94.

[91] The Irish Times 9 March 1966.

[92] Fallon 2016.

[93] Fallon 2014, pp. 114–16.

[94] Fallon 2014, p. 96.

[95] Fleming 2016.

[96] O'Riordan 2016.

[97] The Guardian 15 March 1966.

[98] The Irish Times 14 March 1966.

[99] Fallon 2014, pp. 107–11.

[100] Fallon 2014, pp. 106–13.

[101] Fallon 2014, p. 99.

[102] “A colonel writes...” 19 March 2006.

[103] The Guardian 9 March 1966.

[104] Kennedy 2013, p. 52.

[105] Fallon 2014, p. 100 (quoted from The Irish Independent,9 March 1966).

[106] Myles 2009, p. 312.

[107] Fallon 2014, pp. 101–03.

[108] White 2009.

[109] Nelson Pillar Act, 1969.

[110] Seanad Éireann Debate 23 April 1969.

[111] Fallon 2014, pp. 118–19.

[112] Fallon 2014, p. 120.

[113] Dublin City Council Press Statement September 2011.

[114] TheJournal.ie 25 February 2011.

[115] Fallon 2014, pp. 120–22.

[116] Kennedy 2013, p. 53.

[117] Fallon 2014, pp. 124–26.

[118] Joyce 2002, p. 112.

[119] Kilfeather 2005, p. 60.

[120] Kennedy 2013, p. 62.

[121] Gogarty 1937, p. 259.

[122] Steinman 1983, p. 86.

[123] Behan 1991, p. 221.

[124] RTE: A Poem for Ireland.

[125] Fallon 2014, pp. 78–79.

[126] Dodsworth 2001, p. 484.

8.3 Sources 11

8.3 Sources

8.3.1 Books

• Behan, Brendan (1991). Confessions of an IrishRebel. London: Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0-09-936500-6.

• Casey, Christine (2005). The Buildings of Ireland:Dublin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.ISBN 0-300-10923-7.

• De Rosa, Peter (1990). Rebels: The Irish Rising of1916. London: Bantam Press. ISBN 978-0-593-01751-7.

• Dodsworth, Martin (2001). “Mid-Twentieth Cen-tury Literature”. In Rogers, Pat. The Oxford Illus-trated History of English Literature. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. ISBN 0-19-285437-2.

• Fallon, Donal (2014). The Pillar: The Life andAfterlife of the Nelson Pillar. Dublin: New IslandBooks. ISBN 978-1-84840-326-0.

• Gogarty, Oliver St John (1937). As I Was goingDown Sackville Street. New York: Reynal & Hitch-cock. OCLC 289128.

• Harvey, John (1949). Dublin: A Study in Environ-ment. London: Batsford. OCLC 364729.

• Hopkins, Frank (2002). Rare Old Dublin: Heroes,Hawkers & Hoors. Dublin: Mercier Press. ISBN1-86023-150-0.

• Hunt, Tristram (2014). Ten Cities That Made anEmpire. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1-84614-325-0.

• Joyce, James (2002). Ulysses. Mineola, NY: DoverPublications. ISBN 0-486-42444-8.

• Kennedy, Dennis (2013). Dublin’s Fallen Hero.Belfast: Ormeau Books. ISBN 978-0-9572564-1-5.

• Kilfeather, Siobhán Marie (2005). Dublin: a Cul-tural History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-518201-9.

• Murphy, Paula (2010). Nineteenth-Century IrishSculpture: Native Genius Reaffirmed (PDF). NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15909-7.

• Myles, Franc (2009). “Admiral Nelson: My partin his downfall”. In Fenwick, Joe. Lost and FoundII: Rediscovering Ireland’s Past. Dublin: Wordwell.ISBN 978-1-905569-26-7.

• Pakenham, Thomas (1992). The Year of Liberty:The History of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1798.London: Phoenix Books. ISBN 978-1-85799-050-8.

• Steinman, Michael (1983). Yeats’s Heroic Figures.Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.ISBN 0-87395-698-2.

• Thackeray, William Makepeace (1911). IrishSketchbook of 1842. New York: Charles Scribner.

• Townshend, Charles (2006). Easter 1916: The IrishRebellion. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-101216-2.

• Warburton, J.; Whitelaw, J.; Walsh, Robert (1818).History of the City of Dublin from the Earliest Ac-counts to the Present time II. London: T. Cadell andW. Davies. OCLC 65244719.

• Whelan, Yvonne (2014). “Landscape and Politics”.In Jackson, Alvin. The Oxford Handbook of Mod-ern Irish History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-954934-4.

8.3.2 Newspapers and journals

• “Architects fail to save Pillar”. The Guardian. 15March 1966. p. 3. (subscription required)

• “Crowds Cheer as Army Blows Up Nelson Pillar”.The Irish Times. 14 March 1966. p. 1.

• “Editorial note”. The Irish Builder and Engineer:497. 30 June 1923.

• Garnett, P.F. (June–August 1952). “TheWellingtonTestimonial”. Dublin Historical Record (Old DublinSociety) 13 (2): 48–61. (subscription required)

• Henchy, Patrick (1948). “Nelson’s Pillar”. DublinHistorical Record (Old Dublin Society) 10 (2): 53–63. (subscription required)

• Hickman, Baden (9March 1966). “Guards onMon-uments after Dublin Explosion”. The Guardian. p.6. (subscription required)

• “Lenihan Condemns Pillar “Outrage"". The IrishTimes. 9 March 1966. p. 1.

• “Nelson to Leave Sackville Street”. The ManchesterGuardian. 26 March 1926. p. 9. (subscription re-quired)

• Ó Riain, Micheál (Winter 1998). “Nelson’s Pillar”.History Ireland 6 (4). Retrieved 5 March 2016.

• O'Riordan, Billy (7 March 2016). “The Fall of Nel-son’s Column Recalled...50 Years On”. The IrishExaminer. Retrieved 12 March 2016.

12 9 EXTERNAL LINKS

• Shaw, G. Bernard (26 July 1916). “Some NeglectedMorals of the Irish Rising”. Maoriland Worker(New Zealand) 7 (284). (This article first appearedin The New Statesman, 6 May 1916)

8.3.3 Online

• “1894 – Design for entrance and railings, Nelson’sPillar, Dublin”. archiseek. 2015. Retrieved 13March 2016.

• “A Poem for Ireland: 'Dublin'". Raidió Teilifís Éire-ann. 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2016.

• “Anna Livia monument floats to a new home”. The-Journal.ie. 25 February 2011. Retrieved 13 March2016.

• “Anna Livia Moves To The Croppies”. Dublin CityCouncil. September 2011. Retrieved 14 March2016.

• “A Colonel Writes...”. Independent.ie. 19 March2006. Retrieved 11 March 2016.

• Andrews, H.; Coleman, J. (2009). “Luke Gardiner”.Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 3 March2016. (subscription required)

• “Beater, George Palmer”. Dictionary of Irish Ar-chitects. Irish Architectural Archive. Retrieved 13March 2016.

• Cust, L.H.; Bagshaw, Kaye (2008). “Johnston,Francis”. Oxford Dictionary of National BiographyOnline edition. Retrieved 3 March 2016.(subscrip-tion required)

• Fallon, Donal (March 2016). “Dispelling the mythsabout the bombing of Nelson’s Pillar”. TheJour-nal.ie. Retrieved 11 March 2016.

• “Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of aUK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present”. Measuring-Worth. Retrieved 4 March 2016.

• Fleming, Diarmaid (12 March 2016). “The Manwho Blew Up Nelson”. BBC Magazine. Retrieved12 March 2016.

• Howley Hayes Architects (February 2009). “TheCumberland Column, Birr, Co. Offally: Conser-vation Report” (PDF). Contae Uíbh Fhailí CountyCouncil. Retrieved 4 March 2016.

• Liscombe, R. Windsor (2009). “Wilkins, William”.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Onlineedition. Retrieved 3 March 2016. (subscription re-quired)

• “Lord Mayors of Dublin 1665–2015” (PDF).Dublin City Council. Retrieved 6 March 2016.

• “Nelson Pillar Act, 1969”. electronic Irish StatuteBook (eISB). Office of the Attorney General. Re-trieved 13 March 2016.

• “Nelson Pillar Bill, 1969: Committee and FinalStages”. Houses of the Oireachtas: Seanad ÉireannDebate Vol. 66 No. 11. 23 April 1969. Retrieved14 March 2016.

• Rodger, N.A.M. (2009). “Nelson, Horatio”. Ox-ford Dictionary of National Biography Online edi-tion. Retrieved 3 March 2016. (subscription re-quired)

• Stephens, H.M.; Harding, Richard (2008).“Blakeney, William”. Oxford Dictionary of Na-tional Biography Online edition. Retrieved 3 March2016. (subscription required)

• “The Partition of Ireland”. Borderlands. QueenMary College, University of London. Retrieved 9March 2016.

• Webb, Alfred. “Walter Cox”. Library Ireland fromA Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin 1878.Retrieved 6 March 2016.

• White, L.W.W . (2009). “Joseph Christle”. Dictio-nary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 13 March 2016.(subscription required)

• “Why some want to give Wellington statue theboot”. Independent.ie. 26 August 2003. Retrieved16 March 2016.

9 External links• Nelson Pillar, 50th anniversary commemoration ac-count, including numerous Pillar images taken be-fore and after the bombing (Old Dublin Town)

• Head in the Sand, personal eyewitness account ofthe students with the head of the Pillar’s Nelsonstatue at Kilkenny Strand (Pól Ó Duibhir)

• The night Nelson’s Pillar fell and changed Dublin,includes photograph of the controlled demolition(The Irish Times)

• Nelson Monument Blasted, 10 March 1966 newsreel report (British Pathé)

• Nelson Pillar Remains Demolished, 14 March 1966news reel report (British Pathé)

13

10 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

10.1 Text• Nelson’s Pillar Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson’{}s_Pillar?oldid=716840650 Contributors: Bryan Derksen, Tarquin, Michael

Hardy, Jtdirl, Deadstar, CatherineMunro, Timwi, Wik, Astrotrain, Itai, Warofdreams, Oaktree b, Jason M, Hajor, Robbot, Dale Ar-nett, ChrisO~enwiki, Wally, Brian Kendig, Angmering, Varlaam, LarryGilbert, Duncharris, Djegan, Attila the Pooh, R. fiend, Quadell,MakeRocketGoNow, Demiurge, Miborovsky, O'Dea, Rich Farmbrough, Mashford, Thuresson, Cmdrjameson, JW1805, Cavrdg, Man vyi,Merenta, Guy Harris, Ricky81682, Craigy144, DLJessup, Giano, Zsero, Woohookitty, ScottDavis, Carcharoth, Ardfern, Lapsed Pacifist,GraemeLeggett, Graham87, Descendall, Angusmclellan, Tim!, Edbrims, Vegaswikian, Funnyhat, Wareq, Bmpower, Bgwhite, YurikBot,Spleodrach, CambridgeBayWeather, Wwilly, Mmccalpin, Awiseman, Rwxrwxrwx, Petri Krohn, 2fort5r, X3210, SailorAlphaCentauri,SmackBot, Navillus, Verne Equinox, Ian Rose, Tiddy, Andy M. Wang, Djln, El Gringo, Salmar, Rhollenton, Writtenright, MJBurrage,Ww2censor, Bolivian Unicyclist, AndySimpson, Khukri, MartinRe, Tim riley, Ceoil, Ohconfucius, Bcasterline, Ser Amantio di Nicolao,John, Gnevin, Mr Stephen, Neddyseagoon, Bobamnertiopsis, Tawkerbot2, CmdrObot, Cydebot, Wiki01916, Flowerpotman, Nugneant,Jon C., Thijs!bot, Dr. Blofeld, Ingolfson, DagosNavy, Charles01, Sarah777, Kipholbeck, Ryan4314, Magioladitis, Rich257, The Anome-bot2, Avicennasis, Nick Cooper, Spellmaster, Jargon777, Achisha, Kanasta, Suckindiesel, HighKing, Funandtrvl, KaizenIT, TXiKiBoT,Asarlaí, Samrica~enwiki, Truthanado, Red Hurley, Kingbird1, Phe-bot, Brian Geppert, Kotniski, Icarusgeek, Silverblaster, Mattgirling,RashersTierney, Boing! said Zebedee, TypoBoy, Piledhigheranddeeper, Brianboulton, Mikaey, Dank, Tameamseo, Addbot, Jeanne bo-leyn, Karsten Lien, Luckas-bot, Yobot, Hohenloh, AnomieBOT, Citation bot, LilHelpa, AustralianRupert, Erik9bot, Haldraper, Remotel-ysensed, Full-date unlinking bot, Lightlowemon, Irlpol, Simon8699, Mauteek, EmausBot, John of Reading, Laurel Lodged, ZéroBot,Omgomgomgomg2, Ischium, Antiqueight, Mhuire86, 1lavagirl, Helpful Pixie Bot, SchroCat, BG19bot, Murry1975, Foxhunter22, Bat-tyBot, IkbenFrank, Parsica, Greentide, ArmbrustBot, Robert4565, TFA Protector Bot, Somchai Sun, Someone not using his real name,JaconaFrere, JamKaftan, IrishSpook, FGSephton, PatrickGuinness, FACBot, Jason.nlw, DylanMcKaneWiki, ScratchClubYoutube, Pad-dywagon73, Lwilslll and Anonymous: 72

10.2 Images• File:1stBaronBlakeney.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/1stBaronBlakeney.jpg License: Public do-

main Contributors: http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=Baron&LinkID=mp57687&rNo=2&role=sit Origi-nal artist: James Macardell, after Sir George Chalmers

• File:Butler_House_gardens,_Kilkenny_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1537832.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Butler_House_gardens%2C_Kilkenny_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1537832.jpg License: CC BY-SA 2.0 Contributors: Fromgeograph.org.uk Original artist: Eirian Evans

• File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contribu-tors: ? Original artist: ?

• File:Fall_of_Nelson.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Fall_of_Nelson.jpg License: Public domainContributors: National Maritime Museum Original artist: Denis Dighton

• File:Nelson’{}s_Pillar_destroyed.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/Nelson%27s_Pillar_destroyed.jpg Li-cense: Fair use Contributors:National Library of Ireland Original artist:Michael S. Walker (per NLI records)

• File:Nelson’{}s_Pillar_porch_design_1894.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Nelson%27s_Pillar_porch_design_1894.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: http://archiseek.com/2015/1894-design-for-entrance-and-railings-nelsons-column-dublin/ (Original source The Irish Builder, April 15 1894) Original artist:Design by George Palmer Beater (1850-1928)

• File:Open_street_map_central_dublin.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Open_street_map_central_dublin.svg License: CC BY-SA 2.0 Contributors: OpenStreetMap Original artist: Kwekubo (<a href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kwekubo' title='User talk:Kwekubo'>talk</a>)

• File:Red_pog.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Red_pog.svg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Originalartist: ?

• File:Sackville_St_Dublin_1842.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Sackville_St_Dublin_1842.jpg License:PD Contributors:The scenery and antiquities of Ireland, Vol 2 by J. Stirling Coyne. Published: London, G. VirtueOriginal artist:engr. by Bartlett, W. H. (William Henry), 1809-1854

• File:Sackville_Street_(Dublin)_after_the_1916_Easter_Rising.JPG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Sackville_Street_%28Dublin%29_after_the_1916_Easter_Rising.JPG License: Public domain Contributors: Transferred fromen.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Rcbutcher using CommonsHelper.Original artist: Miller, James Martin & H.S. Canfield.

• File:The_Spire,_Dublin.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/The_Spire%2C_Dublin.jpg License: CCBY 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: me stesso

10.3 Content license• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0