The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~ Dorothy Parker
There I was looking at The O’Connell Monument, O’Connell Street, Dublin, and I realised that I had no idea what it represented. I’d walked by hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, but I never really gave it much attention. But once I looked at it, really looked at it, I realised how impressive it is and how little I knew about it.
OK I knew the basics; it’s a statue of Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847), The Liberator, who campaigned for Catholic Emancipation – the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament. I learned that in school. But the monument consists of much more than a single statue. It is full of symbols and characters and I was curious.
Below the statue of O’Connell there’s a middle section showing a dominant female with a raised hand with other male figures around her. Below that there’s a section with four winged figures, one of them with a dog. I’d no idea what it all represented.
I guessed that the female figure was Ireland, with her hand raised to O’Connell acknowledging his efforts on her behalf. But the rest of it was a complete mystery to me. So I did a little research and learned a bit about the monument’s history.
Not long after O’Connell’s death in 1847 plans were considered to erect a monument to him.
The first visible sign was the granite foundation, laid in 1864. The monument itself wasn’t ready for unveiling until 1882.
It was designed by John Henry Foley who died in 1874 with the monument uncompleted. In 1878 his assistant, Thomas Brock, was formally commissioned to finish the work.
It turns out that the centre section represents Ireland and the people of Ireland. The tallest figure, female, is the ‘Maid of Erin’ with right hand raised pointing to O’Connell, her liberator. You can see cast off chains at her feet and in her left hand is the Act of Catholic Emancipation. The additional figures symbolise the Church, the professions, the arts, the trades and the peasantry – all classes of Irish society, all indebted to O’Connell.
The base has four winged victories, each of which represents the virtues attributed to O’Connell – patriotism, courage, eloquence and fidelity. I guess the one with the dog is fidelity.
I read that there is evidence of bullet holes in two of the winged victories but I didn’t see them. I’m not sure if they date back to the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence or the Civil War.
I think the pigeon I saw on The Liberator’s head was just a pigeon, representing nothing and not a permanent fixture.
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