Mary Kenny
There used to be an equestrian statue of William of Orange on Dublin’s College Green. It was ‘alternately daubed, mutilated and garlanded with orange lilies’, according to Christine Casey’s brilliant architectural study of Dublin. It survived several explosions, but finally succumbed to dynamite in 1929. King Billy’s effigy, like that of the Bristol slave-trader Edward Colston, was a marked monument.
Similarly with Admiral Nelson, atop the Pillar in O’Connell Street. As we know, the IRA blew him off his plinth in 1966. There had been discussions for decades about replacing Nelson with a more appropriate figure, since the Doric column, erected in 1808, had architectural merit and was a much-loved hub for Dubliners.
Orderly removal
In 1947, a particularly ugly statue of Queen Victoria was removed from the front entrance of Leinster House, and exported to Sydney, Australia, which volunteered to take it.
But Victoria’s statue was removed in a calm and orderly way, and in full view of the public who were allowed to applaud, or, in some cases, dissent, from the procedure. Surely that’s a better way of displacing a statue which no longer seems acceptable, or relevant, to the people among whom it is placed?
In Hungary and Romania, after the fall of Communism, they opened instructive parks in which to display old statues of Stalin, Lenin and the rest of the infamous galere.
Admittedly, pulling down a statue dramatically, or blowing it up, is probably more exciting to its opponents. It makes a bigger splash – as did the statue of Colston into the waters of the Bristol docks.
Pity
It was a pity that Dublin Corporation didn’t take action in the 1930s, when it was suggested that Horatio Nelson be replaced atop the Pillar. The trouble was, there was no agreement on who should replace him. St Patrick would have been the most suitable candidate, since he was acceptable to all Irish people.
Bristol city, too, had been urged to remove Colston for the past 20 years, but dithered.
Destroying statues prompts an uneasy link with the iconoclasm of the Cromwellites, or the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, who ritually destroyed religious statues, as well as churches. There is something shocking and offensive about it, as well as culturally vandalising.
Secular statues or effigies have been attacked in Dublin in recent times – Luke Kelly in Sherriff Street has been repeatedly vandalised. And the effigy of Seán Russell, the IRA veteran who was in negotiation with the Nazis when he died, has also been attacked.
Perhaps keeping a controversial figure in a discreet place is also a solution. The last statue to a British royal in the Irish Republic is enfolded within the foliage of Leinster House’s grounds: behind the rich growth of plants, Prince Albert still stands. Occasionally, there’s a call to pull him down, but somehow, I don’t anticipate an enraged Dublin crowd storming the back lawns of the Oireachtas to remove a German prince who founded the first organisation for the study of Celtic languages…
Open doors are an invitation to all
It will be great to be able to enter a church again, when they open properly.
Following Mass online has been rewarding in its own way and also offered a variety of different locations. And it seems to have stimulated churches to advertise themselves, either in print or online, which I think they should continue to do.
A chance mention on Twitter drew my attention to St Brendan’s Cathedral, Loughrea, last Sunday, and it was grand to be able to ‘visit’ and participate, virtually. The diocese of Clonfert goes back to St Brendan the Navigator himself. The cathedral has some very famous stained-glass windows by the artist Harry Clarke, although these were not visible via the webcam – although maybe they should be?
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I had a cup of coffee last weekend, in the al fresco area of a cafeteria, with three friends. After nearly 12 weeks of lockdown, we all agreed it did us all a power of good just to meet and chat over a coffee. Such a simple thing, that we had heretofore taken for granted. I hope I can keep to my post-lockdown resolution of appreciating all those simple things that have been withheld from us during this time.
