Dublin statues and their nicknames
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Visitors to Dublin in Ireland often comment on the strange comic nicknames given by the populace to some of the city's statues and other monuments. Others are struck by controversies that have often arisen over statues in Dublin, and the disappearance of some of the city's most prominent monuments, mostly at the hands of the IRA.
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Dublin's most prominent monument, Nelson's Pillar, which stood near the General Post Office (GPO) in the centre of O'Connell Street, was blown up by the IRA in 1966, as their way of commemorating the Easter Rising. The IRA only demolished the top of the pillar, what remained was known as the stump, until its removal.
Other monuments still surviving on O'Connell Street include statues honouring Charles Stewart Parnell at the north end of the street; at the southern end stands a statue of Daniel O'Connell. Other statues on the street include one of trade union leader James Larkin.
Nearby, outside St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral stand the Dublin Martyrs, Mayor Francis Taylor and his grandmother-in-law Mayoress Margaret Ball. Blessed Francis Taylor is probably the only 'blessed' politician. (If we define politician as one who attained elected office).
On the site of the Pillar, a new monument was erected in January 2003. Officially named the Spire of Dublin, this tall needle-like structure has already received a number of nicknames including The Spike, The Stiletto in the Ghetto, The Scud in the Mud, The Nail in the Pale (see the Pale), The Metropole, The Stiffy by the Liffey, the Rod to God, the Pin in the Bin, the Erection at the Intersection, and the North Pole (O'Connell Street is on the northside of Dublin). To erect the new monument, a notorious 1980s monument to the personified river Liffey, Anna Livia, was removed from nearby on O'Connell St. The river was represented by a woman sitting on a slope with water running down past her, bubbling. It rapidly came to be nicknamed the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, the Hoor in the Sewer ('hoor' is a dialectal Irish version of 'whore'), Bidet Mulligan (play on the song Biddy Mulligan) and Viagra Falls.
North Earl Street runs right onto the base of the Spire. At this junction is a statue of James Joyce, the world-famous Irish writer, walking with a cane in his hand. It is known to the Dublin populace as the Prick with the Stick.
Just by the Ha'penny Bridge is a statue of two women sitting on a bench engaged in conversation with their shopping bags at their feet - they are known famously as the Hags with the Bags.
A short distance away from O'Connell Street by the banks of the Liffey lies the site of an ill-fated millennium clock, erected in the mid-1990s to count down the hours, minutes and seconds to the year 2000. The clock, with a green-illuminated digital face, was placed underneath the surface of the river by the bank so that the time shone up through the water. Plans were originally underway to attach a postcard booth that would personally print postcards for tourists, each bearing the exact amount of time left at that moment until the dawn of the new millennium. However, the clock entered a period of chronic ill health: it had to be temporarily removed to allow a rowing-boat race to pass by, and in the months that followed, it had repeated problems with letting in water and failing to display the time correctly. It was removed after a brief period, but not before it had been variously nicknamed the Time in the Slime and Chime in the Slime by the people of Dublin. A rectangular hole left in the side of the bridge was later filled with an unauthorised plaque commemerating a fictitious priest, Father Pat Noise.
On College Street, outside Trinity College, the traffic island that a statue to the nineteenth-century lyricist Thomas Moore shares with a public toilet has long been known as The Meeting of the Waters, thus neatly honouring both the civic facility and an eponymous work of the writer.
Another statue to earn a dubious but comical nickname is a monument at the bottom of Grafton Street representing Molly Malone, a fictitious fishmonger featured in Dublin's anthem, Molly Malone, who is shown, with ample cleavage, wheeling a cart. The statue was erected to celebrate Dublin's millennium in 1988 (although Dublin was more than 1,000 years old at the time, see History of Dublin), and is generally known in Dublin as the Tart with the Cart, the Dolly with the Trolley, the Trollop with the Scollops, the Dish with the Fish or the "Flirt in the Skirt".
On the north-east corner of St. Stephen's Green, a semi-circle of rough stone pillars commemorating the Irish Famine and surrounding a statue of Wolfe Tone, is sometimes called Tone-henge (after Stonehenge). In Merrion Square, inside the north west corner gateway, there's a statue of Oscar Wilde composed of different coloured stone, sitting on a large granite boulder. This has been called at least once The Queer with the Leer, The Fag on the Crag or The Quare in the Square ("quare" being a dialectal Irish pronunciation of queer).
On Sandymount Strand, close to the Martello Tower, you can find the sore on the shore.
Curiously, given that Ireland has been independent for over eighty years, no statues in Dublin commemorate independent Irish leaders. Statues were never erected to figures like Eamon de Valera, W.T. Cosgrave, Sean Lemass or any of the presidents of Ireland. One of the few elected politicians commemorated with a statue is Henry Grattan, a leading politician of the 1780s in the old Irish Parliament. A nearby statue of patriot Thomas Davis has earned the nickname Frankenstein due to the out of scale hands and odd shaped body given to the nationalist leader in the 1960s work.
Dublin was once famed for its high quality equestrian statues, including the Lord Gough monument in the Phoenix Park, the William of Orange statue in College Green and the King George II statue in St Stephen's Green. No statues of people on horseback remain today, as they have all since been blown up by the IRA. There is, however, a modern equestrian statue outside the "Break for the Border" nightclub on Stephen Street.
One statue not blown up was the statue of Queen Victoria, referred to by James Joyce as the Auld Bitch, which stood in the forecourt of Leinster House, the seat of the Oireachtas Éireann (Irish Parliament). The statue was removed in 1947 and transferred to storage at The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. In the late 1980s, it was given to the city of Sydney, Australia, where it now stands outside the Queen Victoria Building in the city centre.
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[edit] List of Dublin statues (people)
- Daniel O'Connell - O'Connell St.
- Charles Stewart Parnell - O'Connell St.
- Sir John Gray - O'Connell St.
- Jim Larkin - O'Connell St.
- Fr. Theobald Mathew - O'Connell St.
- William Smith O'Brien - O'Connell St.
- Cúchulainn - GPO O'Connell St.
- Dublin Martyrs - Cathedral Street ** Murdered Mayors
- Thomas Davis - College Green ** Frankenstein or Urination once again
- Henry Grattan - College Green
- Oliver Goldsmith - College Green
- Edmund Burke - College Green
- Thomas Moore - College Street ** Meeting of the Waters
- Phil Lynott - Harry Street ** The Ace with the Bass
- James Joyce - North Earl St. ** Prick with the Stick
- James Connolly - Beresford Place
- Molly Malone - Grafton Street ** Tart with the Cart
- Oscar Wilde - Merrion Square Park ** Fag on the Crag
- William Coyningham - Kildare Street
- Wolfe Tone - St. Stephen's Green ** Tone-henge (blown up 1979, since reconstructed)
- Robert Emmet - Saint Stephen's Green
- Patrick Kavanagh - The Grand Canal ** Crank on the Bank
- Brendan Behan - The Royal Canal
- Countess Markievicz - Tara Street
- William Lecky - Trinity College
- George Salmon - Trinity College
- Daniel Murray - Pro Cathedral
- Paul Connell - Pro Cathedral
- Seán Russell - Fairview Park
- Brendan Behan - Royal Canal, Upper Dorset Street
- Matt Tablot - Sir John Rogerson's Quay
[edit] List of prominent Dublin monuments and sculptures
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- Wellington Monument - Phoenix Park
- Phoenix Monument - Phoenix Park
- Papal Cross - Phoenix Park
- Two Women - Liffey Street ** Hags with the Bags
- Fusiliers' Arch - St. Stephen's Green ** Traitors Gate
- An Cailín Bán - Sandymount Strand ** Sore on the Shore
- Spire of Dublin - O'Connell St. ** Stiletto in the Ghetto / Spire in the Mire / Spike in the Dyke / Poker near Croker / Stiffy by the Liffey
- Queen Victoria Fountain - Dún Laoghaire ** Birdcage
- O'Connell Tower - Prospect Cemetery
- Battle of the Custom House - Memorial Road
- Liberty Scaling the Heights - Grand Canal St.
- Famine Monument - Custom House Quay
- Children of Lir - Parnell Square
- Chariot of Life - Abbey Street
- Padraig Sheahan Memorial - Hawkins Street
- Dublin Yeomanry Memorial - St. Andrew Street
- Lady Laura Grattan Font - St. Stephen's Green North
- Merchant Seamen Memorial - Sir John Rogerson's Quay
- 1974 Dublin and Monaghan Bombings Memorial - Talbot Street
- Dancing Couple - Stardust Memorial Park, Coolock
- The NCIris - Mayor Square, IFSC ** The Cock in the Dock
[edit] Selected unusual Dublin statues (non category specific)
- Cinema Usher - Hawkins Street
- Strong Striking Bear - IFSC
- A Cow - Jervis Street
- Two Deer - N11 Glen of the Downs
- Two Children - Portland Row
- Headless Saint - atop St. Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street
- A Hand - Marlborough Street
[edit] List of past Dublin statues and monuments
- King George II - St. Stephen's Green (blown up 1937)
- William of Orange - College Green (blown up 1946)
- Queen Victoria - Merrion Square (sent to Australia in the late 1980s) ** Auld Bitch
- Bowl of Light (thrown into the Liffey 1953) replaced with a flowerbed (see next)
- Flowerbed - O'Connell Bridge ** Tomb of the Unknown Gurrier
- Gough Monument - Phoenix Park (blown up 1957)
- Nelson's Pillar - O'Connell St. (blown up 1966) ** The Stump (1)
- Millennium Clock - River Liffey (removed 1999) ** Chime in the Slime
- Anna Livia - O'Connell St. (new location recently decided) ** Floozie in the Jacuzzi/Whore in the Sewer (Whore is pronounced 'hoo-er', sewer is pronounced 'soo-er')
- The Washerwomen - Dame St. (site undergoing redevelopment. status unknown)
- Father Pat Noise Memorial - O'Connell Bridge (placed as a prank by persons unknown. Removed by Dublin City Council)
