Nelson's Pillar
Dublin Corporation raised a granite column to an English admiral in 1809 — Irish republicans brought it down with explosives in March 1966, and the Irish Army destroyed what was left.
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Built in the euphoria following Trafalgar, the column became legally untouchable for over a century: a perpetual trust bound successive Irish governments, even as nationalist pressure to replace Nelson with an Irish hero grew louder. Yeats and Gogarty defended it on cultural grounds. Persons widely believed to be the IRA settled the debate that legislation could not — though the Gardaí never identified anyone responsible. A former republican only admitted involvement in a 2000 radio interview, decades after the fact.
What to look for
- The Spire of Dublin (2003) now stands on the exact footprint — a slim needle rising nearly three times the height of the original Pillar
- O'Connell Street itself, formerly Sackville Street, the address the column anchored from its opening on 29 October 1809
- Nothing of Thomas Kirk's Nelson statue or Francis Johnston's modified granite design survives above ground
The Pillar no longer exists; its site is on O'Connell Street, now occupied by the Spire of Dublin erected in 2003.
Nelson's Pillar is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Dublin, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dublin pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dublin
- Aviva StadiumOne 51,711-seat bowl jointly owned by rugby and football — two governing bodies, one ground, no separate home for either.
- Dublin CastleThe river that gave Dublin its name still flows beneath your feet — and the building above it ran Ireland for 750 years.
- Croke ParkThe fourth-largest stadium in Europe holds 82,300 people — almost entirely for sports most of the world has never watched.
- National Library of IrelandIreland's paper memory — manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers free to open on the spot.
- St Patrick's CathedralIreland's national cathedral has never had a bishop — that role belongs to the rival church 400 metres up the road.
- Spire of DublinA 120-metre stainless-steel pin planted on the exact spot where an IRA bomb in 1966 — and a controlled demolition six days later — erased Nelson's Pillar.