A PRICE ON HIS HEAD

I thought I'd have a look at the Dublin Corporation Dangerous Buildings Section file to get a little more insight into the the damage done by Óglaigh na hÉireann in their blowing up of Nelson's Pillar.

You could be forgiven for thinking I was referring to the original explosion when a dissident IRA group blew Nelson off his pedestal in the middle of the night on 8 March 1966.

But that's not the case. My main interest is in the damage caused a week later when the Irish Army (a branch of Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish Defence Forces to you) blew up what remained of the column.

My objective was to check out the compensation claims for damage to private property resulting from the second explosion as part of my campaign to kill the urban myth that the IRA explosion was so clean it did no damage at all (apart from to the Pillar) and the army's explosion was so dirty and incompetent that it broke every window in O'Connell Street.

Purchase

But before I come back to my main objective, I would like to share with you some attempts that were made to purchase Nelson's decapitated head from Dublin Corporation.

The first of these was from a firm in based in Bradford, Arndale Developments Ltd., who were looking for a piece of authentic sculpture for a commercial development in the town of Nelson in Lancashire. What they had in mind was a worthwhile bust or statue.

They were clearly wide awake and quick off the mark. Two days after the first explosion, on 10 March, they wrote to the Dublin City Manager asking if they could have the head.

They must have been the first of many to get the reply that the head was not the property of the Corpo and they should take the matter up with the trustees who owned it. Which they said they would do.

Only two days later, on 12 March 1966, the Corpo received a telegram from Paul Kelly in London offering £50 for the head.

Much later in September 1966, the editor of Trinity News at TCD, Seán A Walmsley, was looking for the head for permanent display in the College. Some people might feel that this would be a fitting resting place for Nelson, even if it was only his head.

Logo of the Knights of Columbus

But what really took my fancy, as far as attempted purchase goes, is from 2 October 1966, when a request was dispatched from Washington DC, in the following terms:

A chara

I wish to purchase the head of Nelson's Pillar. I will pay a dollar (which you will find enclosed). Please send the head COD (Collect on Delivery) to the address below.

Thank you.

Go raibh míle
maith agat

Mr. Valentine Matelis
2009 Evansdale Drive
Hyattsville Rd 20783
USA

The Irish bits, which I have italicised were in a relatively old form of the cló gaelach (Celtic script).

Now, when you've stopped smiling, you may begin to feel the tone of the letter a little peremptory and condescending. You may be a little less surprised when you know that Mr. Matelis was a former Grand Knight (1957-8) in the Knights of Columbus.

One wonders if there had been any backchannels involved here. However I suspect that is unlikely as it would then have been known that the Corpo were not in a position to dispose of the head.

And in case you end up confusing Mr Matelis with the Supreme Knight, I should point out that there could be around 14,000 Grand Knights in this organisation of 1.8 million members.

Loan / Rent

Purchase was not the only avenue pursued in the interest of possession of the head. It was nicked from a Corpo stores building in Ardee St. between 3pm on the 16th and 8.30am on the 18th of March 1966.

This was the work of a bunch of students from the National College of Art and Design, where certain student body funds needed topping up. The students then hired out the head to anyone willing to pay a reasonable price. I came across them in the course of a fashion shoot on Killiney beach and they were at great pains to preserve their anonymity, at least as far as the car registration was concerned.

The results of this fashion shoot appeared in the Evening Press on 2 April 1966. And this is only one of the head's public appearances while "on leave" from the Corpo.

It was returned to the Corpo on 6 September 1966 with Principal Officer V O'Brien reporting to Principal Officer F Feeley that he took possession of the head at 1pm on that day.

Compensation

And now back to my main preoccupation, the claims to the Corpo for compensation for damages to private property.

At a City Council meeting on 7 November 1966, Matthew Macken, City Manager, said that in relation to the first blast, 36 claims had been received for malicious damage, totalling £18,864 19s 3d, and that 33 claims for damage to property totalling £4,180-9-10 had been received after the Army demolition. As the latter claim included a claim for damage to scaffolding used during the operation, of £1,000, and as this was part of the operation itself, claims from third parties not involved in the operation would reduce to about £3,000 or about a sixth of those from the first explosion. So I think that effectively demolishes the urban myth once and for all.

But my interest goes further and I had a look at a breakdown of those claims resulting from the second explosion which had been received by 10 August 1966. While 35 claims were expected at that stage, it appears 33 finally materialised by November.

In August concrete claims amounting to about £3,000 had been received but as this included the scaffolding, we are talking about some £2,000 in 20 other claims. Of these 13 appeared reasonable to the Corpo while they recommended very significant reductions in the remainder.

In terms of the size of individual claims, the largest by far was from Worths at £400, followed by both Madame Nora's and Slowey's at £250 each. Next came the Northern Bank (+ Canadian Embassy) at £160 and Burton's at £127. The smallest came from Aer Lingus (£2) and the Pillar House Jewelers (£4).

Worth's claim was considered wildly excessive and the Corpo estimated £131 to be a reasonable claim instead of the £400 sought.

McDowell's put in for £60 and that was considered reasonable.

Other Expenses

The Corpo also had a lot of other expenses for preparations in the run up to the army explosion, repairs to infrastructural damage such as gas mains, subsequently destroying the base and, of course, removing tons of rubble. All in all these came to around £6,000.

But, at the end of the day, comparison of the relative damage done to private property by the two explosions offers the best and most straightforward yardstick for debunking the urban myth on its own terms.

Beyond the call of duty

Coming back to the head to round off this post. Were it not for the initiative of a Corpo worker in going beyond the call of duty, and indeed his own authority, in stopping a private individual from removing the head before the Corpo took it into safekeeping at 4am on the morning of 8 March 1966, we would not have the pleasure of viewing it at the Dublin City Library and Archive in Pearse St. today.

BIG BANGS ROUNDUP

Click on any image for a larger version

As we know, Nelson's Pillar was subject to two explosions in March 1966. The first took care of Nelson, the viewing platform and about a third of the column directly below it.

My purpose in the present post is simply to draw attention to some side aspects of these events including the damage done and not done by the army in the second explosion.

First the precise time of the first explosion. You can see from the photo above that this was at 1.32am (on 8 March).

Second, for those who may not have been paying attention at the time, the force of the first explosion went upwards taking Nelson and his plinth with it. However on the way down, the plinth crashed into the remainder of the column and lodged there. I've put this photo in so you can have a better look. Click on the photo for a larger version.

And finally, before we come to the second explosion, and out of pure nostalgia, I've included a photo of an old style bin lorry, which I'm sure very few of my readers will remember.

And now to business. The army did a lovely job blowing up the remainder of the column as you can see from this photo.

What we sometimes forget is the amount of scaffolding that went up before the army explosion. It went right up to the top of the remainder of the column. And of course it was inevitably collateral damage in the event.

Now, nobody ever claimed that the army didn't break windows. It would have been a miracle if they hadn't. The urban myth was that the first explosion didn't break any windows and the army broke every one in O'Connell St.

You can see some of the collateral damage done by the first explosion in this post. Note Burton's men's clothes shop, for example, in that post.

Well they got another belt from the army (above)

And the army took out at least one of The Happy Ring House's windows. But clearly not all. And they didn't stop the clock, unlike the original explosion, as shown above. The army explosion was at 3am on 15 March.

And, if you draw back, you'll see that most of the windows on the higher floors were undamaged.

And if you look further up the street you'll see that the vast majority of the windows have escaped.

One of the exceptions to this is Worth's, the jewellers. If we look back to the other side of O'Connell St, Worth's have had a lot of window damage. However this is nothing new and had been specifically mentioned at the time by the expert civilian observer of the army blast.

This is probably the appropriate point to recall that compensation claims for damage done in the first explosion were over four times those for the army job, and the latter may have included the scaffolding above, making the comparison even more favourable to the army.

The glazier's truck is fairly snappily on the scene, but only in the immediate area of the pillar.

The job of the wrecker's ball is made slightly easier as the base is not solid. The narrow internal stairway went from ground level right up to the viewing platform.

This is what I call a motion still, if you let your imagination free you'll see what I mean.

You can access a whack of my Nelson material from here.

So, as the fiftieth anniversary of Nelson's ascent, and subsequent and immediate descent, draws to a close, we say bye bye Nelson.

I don't expect to be around for the centenary.

CRIME WRITER

Not a lot of people know this ...

Instead of being an economist, politician, party leader, nearly Taoiseach, banker etc., Alan Dukes could have been a best selling crime novel writer.

This thought came to mind recently in the context of the abortive attempt to blow up Nelson's Pillar a week before the actual explosion which rid us of the admiral forever (except for his head on a spike, so to speak, in the Pearse Street reading room).

The nub of the matter is the timer used for the abortive pillar explosion.

Now Alan wrote his first crime story for me when I was editor of the Shanganagh Valley News in 1959 and, as he didn't ultimately follow up on this genre in the rest of his career, I probably have the distinction of being his only crime writing publisher.

You can read Alan's original crime mystery below.

---

SHANGANAGH VALLEY NEWS
February, 1959.          Price _2d.

---

??? WHO DUNNIT ???
le Alan Diuic.
Old Mrs. Corrigan, widow of the late and much celebrated architect, lives alone in the rambling house which was locally known as "The Widow's Mansion". On the night in question, she was lying in bed and was almost asleep when she heard a tap on the window. She drew a short breath, startled, but not really frightened. When it was repeated again and again she did not feel at all happy. Slowly, clad in her heavy dressing gown, she approached the window. She released the catch and opened the window slightly, calling "Who's there?". She received no reply and in consequence leaned farther out, repeating her question. This time she received an answer in the form of a loud report. For a moment she stood there, petrified, and then clutching her heart, she fell, DEAD!!!

Inspector Stafford pessimistically scanned the list. It contained the names of those suspected of last night's crime. His assistant peered curiously over his shoulder. The Inspector quietly folded the list, placed it in his pocket and told Jack (this being his assistant's name) to have the car ready in three minutes. After many unfruitful questionings, Stafford was becoming impatient so he decided to make this his last call of the day. After knocking politely on the door for some moments, it was opened by a grim-faced labourer who obviously did not have a Gradh for the Gardai one would expect to find in the average good citizen. After grudgingly admitting the two men, he proceeded to intone his alibi. He had, he said, gone to bed at 7.30 p.m. the previous night with a headache and slept soundly until he was awakened by the alarm at 8.0 a.m. this morning. Stafford requested the alarm to be given to him and, sure enough, it read 8.00. The detective remarked, "I think he's our man Jack", and without a moment's hesitation handcuffed the man who struggled violently.

Later, after severe interrogation, the man, Flanagan by name, confessed explaining that after a quarrel with his aunt she cut him from her will and as a result he bore her an intense hatred which he had satisfied the previous night.

---

[For any digital age youngsters reading this, who may still be mystified by the Inspector's insight, I need to remind them that the standard alarm clock in those distant days was a mechanical analogue twelve hour clock – Editor 2016]

And what, you may ask has all that to do with an abortive attempt to blow up Nelson, nearly sixty years later in 1966. Well, checkout this post and see.

Óglaigh na hÉireann

Click on any image for a larger version

OK. Liam Sutcliffe blew up Nelson's Pillar so neatly he didn't disturb a butterfly. Then the Irish army came along to finish the job and broke every window in O'Connell Street.

So goes the urban myth, retailed with increasing glee by Dubliners for the last fifty years without a break.

It's driving me mental, because it is untrue. It exaggerates the competence with which the original explosion was carried out, and I don't deny for a minute that it was an almost unbelievably competent job. And it is a gross calumny of the Irish army's explosives people.

Ten years ago, Colonel Michael Cleary, Director of Engineering with the Defence Forces, wrote a letter to the Sunday Independent pointing out how little damage the army did, despite their task being immeasurably more challenging than that of the original bomb setter.

His clincher was to point out that compensation claims on foot of the first explosion were four times higher than those resulting from the army job. You'd think that would have scotched the urban myth on the spot, but clearly it had already got too strong a hold on the imagination for a few facts to spoil a good story.

Donal Fallon, in his definitive book on The Pillar, recalls the compo evidence but still the myth persists. Last Saturday (5/3/16) Hugh Linehan, Culture Editor of the Irish Times, retailed the myth as fact, provoking Colonel Cleary to come out of retirement to take him to task, quoting the same facts he had put in the public domain a decade earlier. Hugh has had the grace, on social media, to accept the Colonel's version.

One of the bits of damage, which was noted by the civilian expert observer on the night the army blew up the stump, was a broken window in Burton's men's clothing shop at the northern corner of Nth. Earl St. and O'Connell Stret. You can clearly see the shop in question in the photo above and there is no doubt that the window has had it.

But retired Colonel Cleary should not carry this sorrow to his grave. This is a photo taken after the FIRST explosion and you can see the additional damage done to the traffic light by falling masonry. Sure, the compression from the blast went up and out over the rooftops, but tons of granite and limestone came tumbling down to ground level, consisting of a third of the column, the viewing platform itself and its own central pillar with Nelson himself on top of it.

And the first explosion cracked this window of a shop further down the street towards Clerys.

So, fellow Dubliners, would yiz ever give the army a break and a few cheers when they pass the reviewing stand at the GPO and the site of a job well done half a century ago.

---

Meanwhile the full text of the Colonel's original letter of ten years ago is a great read, so I have reproduced it below:

Sir - In the course of his article under the heading, 'Whatever happened to . . . Nelson's Pillar', in last Sunday's edition, your correspondent Rory Egan stated: "Army engineers were brought in to remove it [the stump]. Their 'controlled' explosion caused more damage than the original blast, much to the amusement of Dubliners."

Could I refer you to the 2004 Review of the Journal of Irish Mining and Quarrying Society (Extractive Industry Ireland 2004) and an article written by its editor, Tony Killian, titled Exploding the Myth: the Truth about the Demolition of Nelson's Pillar. Mr Killian is a member of the Institute of Explosive Engineers and worked as a technical engineer with the explosive supply industry since 1951, specialising in the design and supervision of blasting operations in the quarry and civil engineering fields. He has carried out numerous building and chimney stack demolitions in Ireland and the UK throughout his career.

Following the first blast on March 8, 1966, Mr Killian, who at the time was the technical representative with the main commercial explosives supplier in Ireland, was asked by the Gardai to inspect the remains of the monument, with a view to giving an opinion on methods and quantities of explosive used by the perpetrator, whoever he or she might have been.

He carried out an in-depth survey of the scene and asked permission to attend the army demolition of the stump at 0300 hours on the following Monday, March 15. The Army Engineer in charge of the operation, Comdt Jim Seward, later to be Colonel and Director of the Corps, one of my predecessors, outlined to Mr Killian the technique he intended to use to demolish the stump, and Comdt Seward incorporated a suggestion by Mr Killian in relation to additional protection to dampen flying material during the blasting operation. Mr Killian then took cover in a doorway in North Earl Street, about 70 yards away.

After the blast of the stump he walked about the site and observed one windowpane on the first floor of the GPO; upstairs windows on Worth's jewellery store at the corner of Henry Street; the window of Burton's shop - all broken. And a burglar alarm going off. He did not see any other broken windows, while admitting that air overpressure may have caused others to shatter. From an explosive engineer's perspective, he said that Comdt Seward had carried out the demolition in a very competent manner, despite extreme difficulties.

There were technical problems in relation to the boring of holes for the explosive charges, which had to be carried out from the outside and at street level, whereas the perpetrator of the first blast had the luxury of blowing from the inside of the column and above street level. The central layer of six inches of sand between the inner 24 inches of limestone and the outer eight inches of granite and the spiral stone staircase would have cushioned and deflected the blast outwards and upwards. Poor old Nelson didn't have a chance. The proof of the pudding lies in the subsequent claims for damage. At a City Council meeting on November 7, Matthew Macken, City Manager, said that in relation to the first blast, 36 claims had been received for malicious damage, totalling £18,864 19s 3d, and that 33 claims for damage to property totalling £4,180-9-10 had been received after the Army demolition. The latter claim may have included a claim for scaffolding used during the operation, of £995-17-10.

Mr Killian defines the myth as: "The first blast was an expert job which did no damage to property, but the Army blew up half of O'Connell Street." He asks if he should apologise for spoiling it with facts.

Not to me, Mr Killian, not to me. Colonel Michael Cleary, Chartered Engineer, Director of Engineering, Defence Forces
(Published in Sunday Independent on 19 March 2006)

You can see some army-broken windows here.

NELSON'S 50 YEAR ABSENCE

Nelson's Head (actual)
Click on any image for a larger version

Admiral Nelson vacated his perch on The Pillar on the morning of 8 March 1966. At the time his demise almost overshadowed the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

There is no fear today of Nelson, absent from his perch for the last 50 years, overshadowing the 100 year commemoration of the Rising. In fact we are nearly in danger of forgetting about Nelson altogether this year with all the 1916 events taking place and the consolation of the ever beautiful Spire in our hearts.

So it is great that the Dublin City Library & Archive have stepped in and organised a Nelson's Pillar seminar for the day. They are the custodians of the most significant bit of the oul admiral to survive the fall: his head (above)

Mary Clarke

It is hardly necessary for me to remind readers of this blog of the pivotal role of City Archivist, Mary Clarke, in preserving and sharing the City's heritage over the years. Well, she was at it again, and it was she who kicked off the seminar.

Alastair Smeaton

First on was a reading by Alastair Smeaton from the Evening Correspondent of 16 February 1808, the year before The Pillar was built. I was initially concentrating on taking his photo, not realising how brief the extract would be, so he was already finished when I started listening. I assume it must have been about the plans for The Pillar and the public subscription by which it was financed.

As I'm only going to give him one photo, I should mention that he returned to the stage later in the show to bring us a few prophetic lines from Louis MacNeice about Dublin falling down.

Tony Fitzpatrick

We were then sung a ballad called Lord Nelson, written by Tommy Makem and performed by Tony Fitzpatrick. As he's also only getting one photo, I should mention here that he gave us another one later on: Nelson's Farewell written by Joe Dolan from Galway.

Donal Fallon

Next we had a potted version of the Nelson Pillar story from the ubiquitous nelsoniser, Donal Fallon. Donal has written the definitive book on the subject, but in his relatively short piece, he concentrated on the run up to the explosion and the immediate aftermath, which was appropriate given the day that was in it. You can catch up on a summary through the piece he had in the Irish Times earlier in the morning.

Luke Cheevers

Luke Cheevers, himself, wrote a ballad on the day of the explosion. It is a mighty ballad and he gave us a fine rendering of it in sean nós style.

A Packed House

The packed audience reacted to all of this with wild enthusiasm and it was over all to soon. It was some consolation that all were invited to meet with the Head upstairs and, in keeping with modern custom, take selfies if they were overcome with a desire to do so.

This was a change from some years ago when I was not allowed to photograph the Head as I would have been in competition with the sale of postcards of same at €2 each.

So, this time, I headed upstairs to take my long sought after photo.

Nicking a photo from Donal's book

When I got there I found a tv newsteam from RTÉ who were doing a piece on the Head for insertion into the TG4 news later in the evening. So, once again I went on air to recount my encounter with the Head on Killiney Beach some fifty years ago.

As it happened, I had Donal's book with me and the team copied the photo of the students stuffing the Head back into the boot of their Austin Mini after a fashion photoshoot at the shoreline.

Tony Fitzpatrick & Luke Cheevers

Then the team decamped downstairs to film Tony and Luke singing in front of the marvellous model of the Piller in the 1916 exhibition.

Tony & Luke

There's no doubt about it, but it takes a fierce amount of concentration to project the casual look. Great performance lads.

Mé féin agus an Ceann eile ar nuacht TG4

I must say I enjoyed observing the RTÉ team in action. Very professional. Presenter/Director was Peadar Mac Gaoithín (from Baile na Finne, unofficially known as Fintown, in Donegal) and Ian Mac Murchaidh, from where I know not, but they were both ag stealladh Gaeilge for the duration.

If you want to catch up on all you ever wanted to know about The Pillar you can take a peek here.

The final TG4 news item is here (as long as it lasts).

Or you can try for the direct TG4 link here, but you may need to go manually to 14 minutes & 19 seconds in, and I think you have only a month from the date of this blog to look at it.

Pillar - a very close call

Liam Sutcliffe
Click image for a larger version

I have long had an interest in The Pillar, not least because I observed and photographed its dismantling after Nelson was blown off it in 1966. However, I never really took very much notice of who was supposed to have blown it up. The all encompassing term "The IRA" served the purpose very well.

It was only in very recent times, with the publication of Donal Fallon's new book, The Pillar, that I realised the IRA had condemned the explosion on the grounds that this sort of thing distracted attention from their main mission which was to change the system itself and not just its cosmetic aspects.

The only person so far to have come forward, in 2000, and claim/admit to having been involved is Liam Sutcliffe. He was at the launch of Donal's book the other evening and I went Googling for a caption to a photo I was blogging when I came across an hour long interview with him on Youtube, some ten minutes of which were devoted to the Pillar operation.

Believe you me, it was scary, really scary.

According to his account he took his three and a half year old child up the Pillar with him when he was helping out the man setting the explosives. As if that wasn't enough, the man setting the explosives was clearly an incompetent idiot who could easily have blown them all to kingdom come.

In the first place, the explosive device was a complete mess - miswired and with an unreliable type of battery. In the second place, the timing device (an alarm clock - very popular in those days) had been set to go off at four in the morning, except it was now around half two in the afternoon and this was a traditional twelve hour alarm clock.

When the trio came down from the Pillar, Liam and his son went to see "the funnies" in a picture house in Grafton St. The other man went back to report success in laying the charge to Joe Christle, the nominal boss of the operation. When Christle pointed out that the bomb would not go off at four in the morning, when presumably there would be nobody around, but at four in the afternoon, in about an hour's time when town would be packed, the man who laid the charge wanted to call the Special Branch to get in the army to dismantle it. Christle would hear none of it and decreed that it be left to go off as set.

As Liam later said, when he learned of this, "there would have been mayhem".

Fortunately, the bomb did not go off and it would be another week before the real explosion blew at half one in the morning. In the course of that week Liam had redesigned the package and it didn't let them down second time round.

Really scary.

Have a listen.

Pillar launch

Photo: Lisa-Marie Griffith
Click photo for a larger version

There I was, thinking I looked very impressive in my collar and tie.

Then, today, I saw Lisa-Marie's photo taken from the viewpoint of the audience and I realised that I looked more like a wonky version of the second coming.

The occasion was the formal launch of Donal Fallon's book on The Pillar on which I have already posted.

Donal had originally invited me to come along and say a few words, "just the two of us". Then a few days before the launch I got the formal invite, in which I was listed as the Guest Speaker and described as a Photographer. Very flattering but a bit scary.

Anyway I turned up, in collar and tie in keeping with my newly found self importance, and delivered my bit which I think people found interesting. At least that's what they said afterwards. Which was fine.

Then people came up to me asking me to sign their copy of the book, which, thankfully had already been signed by Donal, and in some cases, also by Liam Sutcliffe, who is credited in the book with having taken part in the dispatch of Nelson from his perch. Never signed a book before unless I was giving it to someone as a present. Weird feeling. But at least it's not like people screaming for your autograph. That could quickly lead to you losing the run of yourself.

I was reflecting on why people would have anyone other than the author sign their book when I recollected my own behaviour at the launch of Tim Carey's book, Hanged for Murder, where I not only got Tim to sign my copy, but persuaded Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, to sign as well.

And on this occasion I also got Liam's signature on my own copy of The Pillar.

It was an appropriate occasion to pay tribute to Shane Mac Thomáis to whom the book is dedicated and who, but for his tragic death earlier in the year, would have been launching the book in my place. Donal quoted the final verse from Donagh MacDonagh's poem Dublin Made Me:

I disclaim all fertile meadows, all tilled land
The evil that grows from it and the good,
But the Dublin of old statutes, this arrogant city
Stirs proudly and secretly in my blood.

While I had a few of my own plants in the audience (thank you lads and lady) I detected a sort of general air of "who is this guy" which made me feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle waking up out of a 1966 sleep."

But it was a great night. I met some old, and lots of new, people, and was even treated to a dissertation on aliens in The Duke afterwards. Saying that I knew a lady from Roswell, however, did not seem to impress my interlocuter who was more interested in persuading me of the planned role of The Spire in the next round of alien contacts.

I had done up a background web page for the launch, which I forgot to mention on the night, and which you can see here. Its main purpose is to bring together some few links relating to the book and beyond.

You can also see some photos from the New Island collection here and my "Guest Speech" here. As far as the latter is concerned, younger readers may need a little light cast on Des Fennell.

What Nelson Saw

Click any image for a larger version

Five views from the top of Nelson's Pillar will give you some idea what Nelson saw at the dawning of every day. While the camera was not of great quality the fact that they cannot be retaken may make them worth a look.

The first one above looks towards the Liffey as it flows past the relatively newly constructed Liberty Hall, the Custom House and the Gasometer. To the left you can see Michael Scott's Busáras.

I don't want to dwell too long on the first photo at the expense of the others, but, I gather there was fierce opposition to the construction of Busáras on the grounds that it would dominate the Custom House (front of, presumably). Nelson must have died laughing, from his vantage point, when he saw Dublin's first skyscraper rising on the west side of the custom house. Clearly a no contest in his eye.

The second one looks across at the Pro-Cathedral and the Department of Education. For me, it emphasises the backstreet location of the cathedral, compared, for example, to Christ Church or St. Patrick's.

The third shows the buildings on the north-east side of O'Connell St. with the landmark spire of St. George's church and the back of the houses in Cathal Brugha St. Note the shadow of the Pillar itself which we might have used as a sundial instead of the Millennium Chime in the Slime had Admiral Nelson not taken his leave of us by then.

The fourth one looks straight up the middle of the street, clearly showing the public toilets and mid-street parking as well as bringing in Findlater's church and the Rotunda tower.

The final shot moves a bit westwards, retaining Findlater's but showing the full of Parnell Square, including the imposing frontage of the historic Georgian buildings where the Rising was planned and which subsequently housed Coláiste Mhuire where I went to school. You can see Phibsborough church and also the spire of the Black Church where legend had it that if you ran round it three times and then went in you'd meet Old Nick himself.

How high was Nelson?

Since that fateful night of 8 March 1966, I have often wondered exactly how much of Nelson's Pillar was blown up. I went for years thinking that it was only the very top of the column. I was possibly influenced in this by the little bit of the plinth that remained perched on the top of the blown up column.

In more recent times I realised that a significant portion of the column itself had been blown away and figured that the explosion had been about two thirds the way up the column. Then I left it at that.

Today, via a link in a comment on the blog Come Here To Me!, I came across a video of the explosion, and have extracted the above still shot. Well it wasn't the actual explosion as I don't think there were still buses running up O'Connell Street at half past one in the morning in those days. Nightlink was still to come. However I was intrigued at where the video had put the point of explosion, about half way up the column. This may have more to do with the song than with any forensic analysis, so I thought it time to have a go at some of the latter.

The photo below shows an earlier shot of the pillar from Henry Street overlaid with one of my own photos from March 1966. It shows quite clearly that the point of explosion was almost two thirds (63%) up the column as I had already guessed from a previous crude measurement exercise.

The Pillar

This book is a little gem.

Before I go any further I have to declare an interest. Eight of my photos appear in the book, including the one on the cover, and I am absolutely thrilled to be associated with it. Donal has thanked me in the acknowledgements in a manner that will boost my ego for the rest of the year. So, at this stage I'm biased.

However, that doesn't stop me being objectively enthusiastic about the book. I knew my photos were in it before ever I got a copy, but I was apprehensive. This was a first hardcopy outing for precious photos taken in 1966 so I was hoping the book itself would be up to scratch.

I needn't have worried. It is well researched, tightly written and eminently readable. It not only traces the history of the Pillar under a number of chapter headings, but it includes a lot of contextual material with gives the story its depth and breadth.

I have had an interest in the Pillar since I first saw it and have followed its story down the years, but this book has provoked some new thoughts and, from my point of view, confirmed some old convictions (or prejudices if you will).

The author is very careful to present the full picture and he doesn't take sides in any of the many controversies around the Pillar. He has enough respect for his readers to bring them the facts and let them make up their own mind.

And he brings an amazing amount of material together, summarising it with all the skill of the committed historian in a way that reads a bit like a thriller.

Like many another Dubliner I didn't really have any strong views on the Pillar while it was there, except for the usual wondering of why we had to have an Englishman, to whom we owed nothing, dominating the main street of our capital city.

Unlike many another Dubliner, I had actually been up the thing, and taken photos from it. That would not have happened had I not been showing a visitor to Ireland around the town.

This is the bowsie, while he was still up there, taken from the viewing platform through the wire mesh. There used to be a simple railings around the platform but a combination of suicides and a general fear for the safety of the less careful led to the whole platform being completely caged in.

It was only after he was blown off his pedestal and after the rest of the pillar had been demolished and the street tidied up that two things struck me.

With the dominance of the Pillar gone, the GPO took its rightful place as the most important building in the street, and this for the first time ever as the Pillar was already in place when the GPO was built.

With the vaunted verticality of the Pillar now gone, the street looked twice as wide and you could, for the first time since it was erected, appreciate the work of the 18th century Wide Streets Commission.

So here was an opportunity not to mess it up again. Nothing higher than the statues between O'Connell and Parnell should have been erected. Then we would still be able to experience the exhilaration of the day when all this dawned on me.


Now, you should remember that, at the beginning of the 19th century, the original Pillar was erected in a fit of exuberance at Nelson's victories and his success in protecting the Empire of which we were then part.

At the end of the 20th century we opted for a replacement in keeping with the hubris of the Celtic Tiger. A tower reaching up to the heavens, without any regard for its surroundings, something between the Tower of Babel and the Golden Calf. The people we had become looked on it and were pleased. God help us.

When my son first saw the picture above, he made some comment about Onan. And he was right. The erection of this monstrosity was an act of self gratification to the exclusion of our cultural and built heritage. It was a spit (and a right gullier) in the face of history and aesthetics by a crowd of troglodytes who were seduced by the prospect of immediate gratification and incapable of leaving well enough alone.

And to be fair to Donal, I should say that the last two paragraphs above are my own, and my own alone. Others, no doubt, will have different views. The great thing about the book is that we can now argue them out in an informed way and what more could you ask for?

Two final remarks.

The book effectively rebuts and lays to rest forever an almost half century slur on the Irish army who did a fine job demolishing the remains of the column and provided the citizens of Dublin with an unforgettable night's entertainment into the bargain.

The book is dedicated to Shane Mac Thomáis, "a gifted historian and a true Dubliner", who died tragically earlier in the year. The best compliment I can pay the book is to say that he would have been honoured by the dedication and enjoyed reading it no end. RIP.

Get it and read it. You won't be sorry.

A page of links relevant to the book.