Weather permitting, the Spire monument in O'Connell Street in Dublin could be completed later today. Engineers and construction workers are due to begin assembling the final three pieces of the stainless-steel structure at 9 a.m. and hope to have the entire structure in place before midnight if weather conditions are suitable.
The first section of the new monument was lowered into place on December 18th last, but high winds and the Christmas holidays have slowed progress since then.
The third section was added to the monument last week, bringing its height to 53 metres.
When the last three sections are added, the Spire will be 120 metres high or seven times the height of the nearby GPO.
Dublin City Council spokesman Mr Declan McCulloch said today's weather forecast was good "so hopefully it will stay that way".
He said it would take some time to mobilise the 140-metre crane into action. It would then take about 1½ hours to get the fourth section into place.
A two-tonne steel damper will be installed with the fifth section to stabilise the structure.
The last section is 38 metres high and is by far the longest of all the sections.
The monument is three metres in diameter at its base and tapers to a diameter of 10 cm at the top.
The completed monument will weigh 120 tonnes and will be twice as high as Liberty Hall, one of Dublin's tallest landmarks.
Mr McCulloch said no road closures or traffic delays were envisaged today during the monument's assembly. The black plastic covering the bottom part of the monument will be left in place until the Spire is formally unveiled, possibly later this month.
"It's all very exciting. There has been phenomenal interest in the Spire," he said. "People are very much in favour of it all and there is a great buzz down at the site."
The Spire has been generating controversy ever since the design was approved by councillors in March 1999. Critics variously described it as "meaningless", "nihilistic" and "an anorexic and alien body".
It should have been completed by the Millennium but quickly became the subject of a successful legal challenge by artist Mr Micheál Ó Nualláin.
As a result, Dublin Corporation had to produce an environmental impact statement for the structure.
Work on the site finally got under way last year.
