Nelson's Pillar gone , 50 years today.

[joan mack]

The man holding the picture is a policeman who was first on the scene of the Nelson Pillar blow up.

The Policeman in the picture is my Grand nephew (jeese that makes me feel old)

[tolka1]

That's the best piece of armchair patriotism I have heard in a long time.

T.y.

[Ed O'Gorman]

IMHO the destruction of the pillar was the largest act of vandalism the City has ever seen. There was need for it as they could have removed Nelson and replaced him with an Irish Hero instead.

Jembo; What would hey have done with all the dated denoting his naval battles that were on the pillar?

[jembo]

Jembo; What would hey have done with all the dated denoting his naval battles that were on the pillar?

They could have put wall cadding on or covered them over with bronze plaques.

[DAMNTHEWEATHER]

Jembo; What would hey have done with all the dated denoting his naval battles that were on the pillar?

A stonemason could easily have removed or disguised all that stuff Ed... i had a mason make a mistake of a very important stone which we'd had made as a dedication....he misread the order and put some wrong stuff on it....panic set in two days before the opening with the CinC....I spotted the mistake....Up came the mason and like magic converted the mistake into the right script...magic right nuff.

That column should have been kept....it's what made the city unique....now ???

The fella that blew it up said;

"The first attempt was on the last day of February but the bomb didn't go off,” Liam Sutcliffe told Kitty Holland in 2003. “So I had to go up on March 1st and remove it. I went into Clerys, bought a nail clippers and stripped it. I had a week then to drop it back. I went back on March 7th, had electrics in a briefcase. I connected everything up and placed it in an aperture that looked up Henry Street.”

What a waste..........

[Ed O'Gorman]

A stonemason could easily have removed or disguised all that stuff Ed... i had a mason make a mistake of a very important stone which we'd had made as a dedication....he misread the order and put some wrong stuff on it....panic set in two days before the opening with the CinC....I spotted the mistake....Up came the mason and like magic converted the mistake into the right script...magic right nuff.

That column should have been kept....it's what made the city unique....now ???

The fella that blew it up said;

"The first attempt was on the last day of February but the bomb didn't go off,” Liam Sutcliffe told Kitty Holland in 2003. “So I had to go up on March 1st and remove it. I went into Clerys, bought a nail clippers and stripped it. I had a week then to drop it back. I went back on March 7th, had electrics in a briefcase. I connected everything up and placed it in an aperture that looked up Henry Street.”

What a waste..........

I agree Noel; It was part of our history ,for good or bad,but it was unique,and a far more attractive sight than that monstrosity s/s needle that represents a replacement.

[DAMNTHEWEATHER]

I agree Noel; It was part of our history ,for good or bad,but it was unique,and a far more attractive sight than that monstrosity s/s needle that represents a replacement.

A disaster altogether imo.

[DAMNTHEWEATHER]

Irish Army Blow Windows For Half A Pillar.

Many of those who followed Christle from the IRA were veterans of the Border Campaign of the 1950s, and one such activist was Liam Sutcliffe, who told the story of planting the explosive device that brought down Nelson for the first time in 2000.
Sutcliffe, who is still with us in this Golden Jubilee year, recalled that the operation to bring down Nelson was codenamed Operation Humpty Dumpty, and that the first planted device had failed to explode, leading to him carefully removing it from the Pillar before returning on the night of 7 March 1966.
Sutcliffe insists that a combination of gelignite and ammonal was used to destroy the Pillar, though not a man to watch his own work unfold, he returned home and was asleep at the time of the successful explosion, hearing of its success in the pages of the national media.

Liam tells his story = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqqRgIdBDAM

The army do the pillar = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBFaxRSbfks

[DAMNTHEWEATHER]

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