In the early hours of March 8th, 1966, an explosion sent the statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson crashing onto Dublin’s O’Connell Street, narrowly missing late‑night revellers and leaving behind a jagged 70‑foot stump. Six days later, the Army finished the job with a controlled blast, cheered on by crowds who gathered to watch the last of Nelson Pillar fall, writes Seán Creedon.

 

‘The Pillar and the Met have gone,
The Royal long since pulled down,
As the grey unyielding concrete,
Makes a city of my town.’

A few lines from Dublin in the Rare Auld Times, written by Pete St John. I’m a country boy, but I also remember Dublin in the rare auld times, having started work in the Central Telegraph Office on the third floor of the GPO in 1968, two years after Nelson’s Pillar was blown up.

At 1.34 am on the morning of Tuesday, March 8, 1966, a powerful explosion destroyed the upper portion of the Pillar and brought Nelson’s statue crashing to the ground amid hundreds of tons of rubble.

O’Connell Street was almost deserted at that time of the morning, although a dance in the nearby Metropole ballroom was about to end and brought crowds on to the street.
There were no casualties; a taxi driver parked close by had a narrow escape and damage to property was relatively light given the strength of the blast. What was left of the Pillar was a jagged stump, 70 feet high.

Six days later members of the Irish Army destroyed the stump with a controlled explosion, watched at a safe distance by a large crowd who cheered when the stump was demolished.
Remnants of the pillar are still on display in several locations. There was a scramble for souvenirs, and parts of the stonework were taken from the scene. For a while, Nelson’s head was held by a group of students, but his head is now on display in the Reading Room of the Dublin City Library in Pearse Street, Dublin.

Additionally the gates which surrounded the Pillar are still held at the DCC Pumping Station in Ringsend. John Lee, from Old Dublin Town, says they are hoping that the gates will be put on display in the Little Museum of Dublin, which has reopened on St Stephen’s Green after a major refurbishing job.

Parts of the lettered stonework from the pedestal are displayed in the grounds of the Butler House Hotel in Kilkenny. Some accounts claim that the army’s controlled explosion caused more damage than the original bomb, but in his book The Pillar, Donal Fallon says that’s not true. Fallon said that damage claims arising from the second explosion amounted to less than a quarter of the sums claimed as a result of the original blast.
The demolition of Nelson’s statue was big news at home and abroad. American newspapers reported that the mood in Dublin was one of gaiety, with shouts of ‘‘Nelson has lost his last battle.’’

There were unconfirmed reports that Éamon de Valera, who was President of Ireland at that time, had telephoned the offices of the Irish Press newspaper, which he had helped to launch in 1931, and suggested their headline should be: ‘British Admiral Leaves Dublin By Air’.

The absence of the pillar was regretted by some who felt the city had lost one of its most prominent landmarks. In the old days CIE buses passing through O’Connell Street carried the word ‘Pillar’ on the front of the bus.

Reactions among the general public were relatively light-hearted, typified by the numerous songs inspired by the incident, the most popular of which was Up Went Nelson. It was recorded by four Belfast schoolteachers, who called themselves the Go Lucky Four. It was set to the air of John Brown’s Body and quickly reached number one in the Irish Top Ten.

Later the Pillar was remembered in a lovely ballad called Meet Me at the Pillar, referring to the 1916 Rising, which was written by the O’Meara brothers, Seán and Frank and recorded by the late Jim McCann. The O’Meara brothers also wrote the ballad Grace.

But who was the five-foot four-inch Admiral who looked down on the main street of our capital city for 157 years?

Continue reading in this weeks Ireland’s Own