A generation of Dubliners has grown up, you suddenly realise, which never knew Nelson on his pillar, there in the middle of O'Connell Street, formerly Sackville Street. On Tuesday morning, March 3rd, not so long before the 50th celebration of the Rising of 1916, an explosion wrecked the pillar, bringing down Nelson's statue and tons of rubble. A dance was ending at the Metropole nearby. Amazingly no one was hurt. A stump of some 70 feet was left, but eight days afterwards Colonel Reggie Mew, Director of Engineering in the Army, and his men brought the whole structure down. There were various views expressed in newspapers and elsewhere in the interim, suggesting that other figures replace Nelson: Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Padraig Pearse; but the Government seemed determined to be rid of it all.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Nelson Pillar is the speed with which it was erected early in the 19th century. Devised and erected, that is, in comparison to what happened to the Admiral in England itself. The formal laying of the foundation stone of the Dublin pillar was on October 21st, 1809, the fourth anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar and Nelson's death. The Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond, with horse and foot Yeomanry, the Provost of Trinity College, and peers, army and navy officers, sheriff, aldermen, all of the top people were there. Eighteen months later the pillar was open to the public at a fee of 10 pence, later reduced to six. For that you could climb 168 steps (111 feet above street level) for a magnificent view of the city and its environs of sea and mountain. But the English, on the other hand, were 10 years behind Dublin with a similar memorial in Great Yarmouth, and 32 years with Trafalgar Square in London.
All this from an article in the winter issue of History Ireland, splendidly researched and presented by Micheal O Riain. His article covers so many aspects and implications, that it is hard to pick out the more lively and telling. Watty Cox, editor of the Irish Magazine (who is described by Roy Foster, according to the author as the `rascally Watty Cox', whether in this connection or not) was contemptuous of the topping-out ceremony, remarking on the indifference of the Irish public "or at least that part of the Irish public who pay the taxes and enjoy none of the plunder." And, on the abolition of the Irish Parliament by the Act of Union wrote: "The statue of Nelson records the glory of a mistress and the translation of our Senate into a discount office." Many other views and comments. Most lively reading. Y