Sir, – The 50th anniversary of the fall of Nelson’s Pillar on O’Connell Street in 1966, coming as it does on the centenary of the Easter Rising, provides a timely opportunity to replace the nondescript Spire with a patriot of Ireland and an enabler of Irish freedom standing atop a new stone monument.
Rebuilding the pillar on O’Connell Street, but with a statue of arguably the founding father of the Irish Republic, Patrick Pearse, standing where that of a champion of the British Empire, Horatio Nelson, once stood, would be a suitable way to mark, in stone, the centenary of that all-important stepping stone towards Irish independence: the Easter Rising.
Dublin city centre is remiss in not having a major statue in honour of Pearse. It would provide a belated and fitting tribute to the leadership of Pearse himself.
– Yours, etc,
JOHN B REID,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.