The rise and fall of Nelson’s Pillar
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@ National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street
Mon 14 March 2016 @ 7pm
Who was Horatio Nelson and why did his naval victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805 provoke a craze for building monuments throughout Britain and Ireland? The first, a ‘Nelson arch’, was erected at Castletownshend, Co. Cork, within days of the victory, and by 1808 ‘Nelson’s Pillar’ was erected in Dublin’s Sackville (now O’Connell) Street. From the start it was a controversial and polarizing monument and eventually fell foul of a republican bomb in March 1966, shortly before the official commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Discussing Nelson, the Pillar and the atmosphere of 1966 Ireland, were History Ireland editor, Tommy Graham, with Donal Fallon, Fergus Whelan, Dennis Kennedy and Carole Holohan.
