The pillar Dublin argued about for 157 years

A bomb brings Nelson down after 157 years

Just after 1:30 a.m. on 8 March 1966, a bomb tore through the base of Nelson's Pillar and brought Nelson down with it. The column had stood exactly where you are standing for 157 years. Nobody was hurt. The blast wrecked the top half of the column. It left the rest leaning, unstable, over the middle of O'Connell Street. Six days later the Irish Army finished the job. They set a second, controlled charge to bring down what remained. The explosion was badly misjudged. It blew out windows the length of the street. It did more damage than the original bomb.

No one was ever charged. In 2000, a former republican gave a radio interview. He said he had planted the explosives. Police questioned him and let the matter drop. For years the site sat empty. The argument over what should replace an English admiral in the middle of Dublin was too raw to settle. A statue of seven paces already stood nearby, unhurt. Nelson did not get a second chance. His statue's head turned up decades later in a Dublin nightclub. It later landed in a city museum.

Dublin built a monument to Nelson it never stopped resenting

The column went up fast. Dublin Corporation voted to build it within weeks of Nelson's death at Trafalgar in 1805. The win still felt raw. The loss still felt personal. William Wilkins drew the first design. Francis Johnston cut it down to save money. Thomas Kirk carved the statue that went on top. It opened on 29 October 1809. For over a century it was the thing everyone in Dublin used to give directions.

It was also, from the start, a target for resentment. A British admiral stood over the main street of a city that increasingly did not want to be British. Nationalists found him hard to leave alone. Calls to tear it down ran through the entire nineteenth century. So did calls to swap Nelson for an Irish hero. What kept it standing was not affection. A trust was set up when the pillar was built. It bound the trustees to preserve it. Irish governments never managed to legislate their way past it.

Not everyone wanted it gone. W. B. Yeats defended the pillar on historical grounds. He argued it belonged to the city's past whether or not anyone approved of the man on top. He lost that argument in the end. But not to a vote. He lost it to a bomb.

Irish troops shelled the street Nelson stood on

The pillar survived the Civil War. The street around it did not. National Army troops shelled republican positions along O'Connell Street's east side that year. The fighting ran north from the pillar's corner past Cathedral Street. Whole blocks came down. It was the second time in six years that gunfire decided what stood on this street. The first time was in 1916. The British Army put down the Easter Rising. In 1922, Irish troops fired on other Irish men. Nelson kept his footing through both. The buildings around him did not.

Police clubbed a crowd here and two men died

Nelson was not the only thing this street decided by force. On 30 August 1913, during the Dublin Lockout, a crowd gathered here to hear labor leaders speak. Dublin Metropolitan Police baton-charged them. Two young men died from the beating. It happened at or near the same ground where the pillar stood. The right to gather on this street was something Dublin settled with clubs and explosives. The right to keep a statue on it was too. It happened more than once.

A convicted traitor kept his statue nearby

A short distance south, near 187 meters, Dublin remembers a different kind of man. William Smith O'Brien was convicted of high treason in 1848. He led a failed rebellion against British rule. He was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted. He was transported. Later he was pardoned. He died in 1864. Dublin raised him a monument on O'Connell Street. It still stands. A man convicted of treason against the crown kept his statue. The admiral who served that crown did not.