JOHN DUCIE,
Madam, - Further to recent letters to these pages, I would like to make the following points. At this remove of more than 100 years since the Victoria Fountain was first erected and 150 years since the famine, it is the quality of the heritage to be restored that should concern us and not the cultural origin of that heritage.
That Victorian Dun Laoghaire was a "model township" in that period, with major advances in building and technology, is without doubt. It is the only wholly 19th-century town built in Ireland with the first commuter railway in the world and the largest man-made harbour in the world. It had also one of the earliest town lighting schemes, modern water supplies, a municipal laundry, mains electricity supply and so on. The Victoria Fountain, until it was disgracefully vandalised was the symbol of Dun Laoghaire in the way that the Halfpenny Bridge is Dublin's.
For those of your readers who do not remember it, the stork-topped fountain was covered by a riotously decorated, pierced dome, which was supported by eight Moorish arches. Iron drinking cups used to be attached by chains to the fountain. Among the realistic detail of birds, griffons, foliage and scrollwork was an image of Queen Victoria, the excuse for this exercise in civic pride. That we have a chance to have this wonderful thing back among us is to be welcomed and the Harbour Board is to be commended for giving it back to us. The original dedication is of no more significance than York, Cumberland, George's or Clarence streets and roads.
I seriously doubt if there is such a thing as a royalist in Dun Laoghaire. Certainly I have never met one in my 46 years of living in the "borough".
There should not be any politics in heritage. It belongs to us all, no matter what its origin. Heritage is all that comes from the past, which is value to the future, and the fountain is surely that.
By the way, my family background is one steeped in Dun Laoghaire with several ancestors involved in the building of the harbour, one of whom was actually "out" in 1916 and spent some time interred for his pains. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN DUCIE, Vice Chairman, An Taisce, Blackrock, Co Dublin.