The streets of Dublin are the stage upon which so much of the nation’s dramatic history has played out. Today, there are reminders everywhere of Ireland’s proud struggle for freedom.
In 1794, a bridge was built here, united the two haves of Dublin today – the south and north. It allowed the north bank to grow. Soon that original bridge had to be widened to accommodate all the traffic. Today, the bridge is actually wider than it is long.
By the mid-1800s, it was the north side that was the trendy new neighborhood, complete with a grand new boulevard – O’Connell Street. That street represented Dublin’s future. And it was here that the nation of Ireland finally achieved what it had longed for, for son long – freedom.
Leaving O’Connell Bridge we walk up O’Connell Street, which starts with a monument to Ireland’s greatest freedom fighter – Daniel O’Connell.
This is the man who launched the movement that would eventually bring Ireland its independence from Britain.
Daniel O’Connell first rose to prominence in the early 1800s as Dublin’s mayor. Next, he was elected to Parliament, representing the Irish in London. O’Connell became a powerful voice for his people.
The Irish people are also depicted on the monument. Those are the statues at O’Connell feet. They’re led by Lady Ireland.
Remember, the Irish people had been oppressed by the British for 700 years. And their dominant religion, Catholicism, had been virtually outlawed by the Protestant British government. When O’Connell was elected, he was the first Catholic member of Parliament ever. He made it his mission to stand up to the British.
The four winged statues at the base of the monument represent O’Connell’s four great virtues.
First, he had great Courage… that would the the statue of the lady with a shield.
… and he was loyal to Ireland – Fidelity… the statue with her faithful dog, Fido. Like Fido, for Fidelity.
His final two virtues were Patriotism, and – most important of all – Eloquence. O’Connell was an extremely eloquent public speaker. He held huge rallies – literally called “monster meetings” – where he spoke out against the British. Thanks to O’Connell’s strong voice, the British were persuaded to relax their laws against Catholic worship. The grateful Irish began calling him the “Liberator,” and the “Great Emancipator.” Next, O’Connell turned his sights on another dreaded law – the Act of Union of 1800. This was the law that officially shackled the Irish people to British rule. O’Connell stood up in Parliament and insisted that the law be repealed so Ireland could govern itself. The idea itself was considered treasonous, and O’Connell was even arrested and put in jail for his outspokenness. But he would not be deterred.
O’Connell’s patriotism inspired the Irish people so much, that a movement to erect this monument begun shortly after his death in 1847. It was finally completed in 1882.
Despite his passion for freedom, O’Connell always preached non-violence. Having personally seen the violence of the French Revolution in 1789, O’Connell insisted on change through peaceful, legal means. He hoped that the sheer size of his “monster meetings” would persuade the British to grant the Irish people their freedom. But the British would not yield. The march to freedom that O’Connell started would take several more generations to complete. And eventually violence would be necessary.
Perhaps that is why you can even see bullet marks on the monument. Right below Lady Courage’s shield, there’s a bullet hole. That happened in the Easter Risings of 1916. That was when O’Connell’s visionary dream of freedom finally started to become a reality – a bloody reality.
William Smith O’Brien. O’Brien was one of O’Connell’s colleagues, and was inspired by the Great Emancipator. But where O’Connell preached freedom through peaceful means, O’Brien turned to violent revolution.
What changed O’Brien’s mind was a sudden calamity that devastated the nation – the Irish Potato Famine. In 1845, Ireland’s staple crop of potatoes was hit by blight and almost totally wiped out. Within just a few years, a million Irish had starved to death. Another million emigrated to America and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the British government did nothing to help the suffering Irish people. O’Brien was enraged. In 1848, he rallied his band of Young Irelanders to take up arms and rise up against British forces. The rebellion was brutally squashed, and O’Brien was sentenced to be drawn and quartered. But O’Brien’s impact was so great that 70,000 Irishmen signed a petition for clemency, which at least spared his life. Thanks to William Smith O’Brien, the movement toward Irish independence took another step forward.
As we move up the street, remember that these men were just the tip of the iceberg of a huge cultural movement. All throughout the 1800s, the Irish people were rediscovering their ethnic roots. They were reviving the Gaelic language, which the British had discouraged. They told old legends and sang traditional folk songs. They were forging a district Irish national identity. Part of that was their national theatre company – the Abbey Theater – which is still going strong just a block down the street to the right.
This is Sir John Gray, one of Daniel O’Connell’s ardent supporters. He shared O’Connell’s progressive vision of making Ireland great through peaceful means. As a member of Parliament and a newspaper owner, he promoted Catholic rights. He lobbied to repeal the union with Britain. He also brought safe drinking water to Dublin, a city that had been plagued with waterborne diseases. Gray’s progressive reforms only served to whet the Irish appetite for more.
Despite reforms by men like Gray, Ireland of the late-1800s was still one of Europe’s poorest countries. Dublin was a tale of two cities – rich British elites and poor grimy Irish factory workers. That’s when James Larkin entered the scene. “Big Jim” Larkin was a union organizer back when that was dangerous business. Having been poor himself, Larkin knew the hard lot of common workers. In 1913, Larkin called a general strike.
It soon became clear this strike was more than just about the rights of a few factory workers. It was a stand against the whole system. For seven months, the bosses and the workers locked horns in a tense face-off. Then James Larkin staged an outrageous stunt that would break the deadlock.
A crowd of workers gathered here, where the statue stands today, to protest. Larkin disguised himself with a fake beard. He went into a nearby building – the one with a clock over the entrance.
Back then it was a fancy hotel where the factory bosses had their headquarters. Once inside, Larkin made his way upstairs an dstepped out onto the balcony. He ripped off his disguise and addressed the crowd below. though his exact words aren’t recorded, one of his best-known quotes is inscribed on the base of the statue:
The great appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise!
Larkin’s words enflamed the crowd. The protest turned into a riot. The British-backed police charged the crowd. Hundreds of workers were savagely beaten. The short-lived uprising was brutally crushed.
But those events that took place here had a huge impact on the Irish people. The 1913 strike inspired workers everywhere to fight for better working conditions. And the brave defiance against the British inspired Irish people everywhere to take the struggle to a national level. The strike proved that Ireland’s poor unwashed masses could actually come together and stand up for their rights. James Larkin’s call to rise up is what led to the most important event in modern Irish history – the Easter Rising.
The General Post Office (or GPO) – Dublin’s central post office is not just another place to buy stamps – it’s a national symbol. The GPO is where the 1916 Easter Rising began. That was the landmark revolt that ultimately led to Ireland’s independence from Britain.
Imagine the scene here on April 14, 1916 – Easter Monday. A band of armed revolutionaries stormed the GPO. They were part of some 1500 freedom fighters, who had already taken over a half-dozen other strategic spots across Dublin.
Now the rebels seized the main post office, the nerve center of the nation, with its vital telegraph. They made the GPO the headquarters for the revolution. They took down the British Union jack and raised the green, white, and orange Irish flag. They declared Ireland a free nation.
Then, one of the leaders, Patrick Pearse, stepped outside. He stood in front of the columns, with the statue of Lady Ireland high overhead. Pearse addressed the cheering crowd. He began solemnly reading a recently drafted document: the Proclamation of the Irish Republic… kind of like our Declaration of Independence. The Proclamation began: “Irishmen and Irish women: in the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.”
The 1916 Easter Rising was underway. For the next five days, Dublin’s streets were a chaotic battleground. Scappy guerilla fighters faced off against 15,000 trained British soldiers. Hundreds were killed, and thousands were injured. The post office was the site of a bloody five-day siege – a kind of Irish Alamo.
The pillars are still pockmarked with bullet holes.
The initial euphoria soon led to the grim realization that the rebels were hopelessly outmanned. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation failed to answer Dublin’s call to arms. So on April 29th, the rebel leaders here in the GPO surrendered. The Easter Rising rebellion had been quashed, just like so many uprisings over the centuries had been before.
But then the British overplayed their hand. The British overreacted and crackeddown too hard. They arrested over 3,000 insurgents, including the ringleaders here in the GPO… men like Patrick Pears, James Connolly, and Michael Collins. Names that Irish patriots today still remember with pride.
Sixteen key rebels were brutally executed across town in kilmainham Gaol… the same prison where so many earlier Irish patriots met a similar fate.
The Irish people came to look on these men not as troublemakers but as martyrs to the cause of freedom. Their deaths galvanized the nation. Now there was no turning back. As the poet W.B. Yeats put it, in his poem about the impact of the 1916 Easter Rising: “All changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.”
The Spire – This 398-foot-tall needle made of stainless steel. The Spire trumpets Dublin’s 21st-century rejuvenation and aspirations for the future. But cynical Dubliners – as they often do – scoff at the spire. Some call it the tallest waste of 5 million euros in all of Europe.
Dubliners have given the Spire a million rude nicknames. The Stiletto of the Ghetto… the Stiffey on the Liffey… or perhaps the Pole in the Hole. 🙂
Those who call it “the erection at the intersection,” point out that – while construction was begun in the 1990s to mark the turn of the millennium – Dublin was only able to get it up by 2004.
The grand boulevard of O’Connell Street is 500 yards long and 50 yards wide. It bustles with the energy of modern Dublin. It’s home to important government buildings like the post office, as well as department stores, major cinemas, fancy hotels and local boutiques.
It’s become pedestrian-friendly, and a convenient tram line runs right down the middle. Any time of day or night, there’s a constant parade of Dubliners and tourists walking the boulevard.
Back in the 1800s, this was Dublin’s Champs-Elysees. It was a stately promenade lined with classical-looking buildings, where Dublin’s elites strolled, shopped, and paraded in their carriages. The post office is one of the few survivors of that genteel era. With its Greek-style columns, triangular pediment, balustrade, and grid-like windows, it was a masterpiece of that neoclassical style called Georgian. In fact, it was one of the last great Georgian building erected in this elegant capital.
But genteel O’Connell Street got rocked hard by the 1916 Easter Rising and by the subsequent violence. Riots, artillery shells, guerrila warfare, skirmishes in the streets… it reduced many grand old buildings to rubble. The ost office basically burned down, and had to be reconstructed behind its Georgian facade. When O’Connell Street was finally rebuilt, it went up haphazardly – a mix of buildings from different eras. Fortunately , most buildings were kept to the same height, giving the street a fairly uniform look.
By the 1960s, one of the last vestiges of the old O’Connell Street was a 130-foot-tall pillar dedicated to the British hero, Lord Nelson. It stood in the center of O’Connell Street, a lingering symbol of the hated British oppression. In 1966, on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, a group of Irish extremists blew the monument to smithereens. It was replaced with what we see today – The Spire.
This is the stage where modern Dublin gathers. It’s where major political demonstrations take place. Where soccer victories are celebrated. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade runs through here. And every Easter Monday, people all across Ireland tune in to their TVs to watch the annual commemoration of hte 1916 Easter Rising right here. O’Connell Street has become an open-air museum of monuments to great Irish heroes. The street itself has become a national symbol – a symbol of Ireland’s freeom.
Father Theobald Mathew: As leader of the temperance movement of the 1840s, Father Mathew convinced over half the Irish population to sign a pledge of abstinence. Historians claim he was the man who sobered Ireland up enough to listen to Daniel O’Connell.
We’re entering a more workaday part of O’Connell Street. There are fewer grand Georgian buildings from the street’s era as a promenade for horse carriages. Remember, the street suffered heavy damage in the wars of independence, and this upper section of the street was rebuilt in a more functional style.
And O’Donnell Street is still changing, as Dublin grows. Check out the area on the left-hand side of the street. This is part of a major renovation project. This part of O’Connell Street had become pretty junked up with fast-food joints and decaying structures. The move was made to tear down many old buildings here – some historic, some not – and create a more people-friendly stretch of modern businesses and apartments.
The Savoy Cinema dates from the 1920s. This glorious old-style movie house hosted film premiers and red carpet events. It’s recently been subdivided into a multiplex… but it’s still Dublin’s go-to cinema.
One thing that hasn’t changed much is the Gresham Hotel, just a few doors up from the Savoy. Dating back to 1817, the Gresham still retains the chandeliered elegance of old O’Connell Street. It’s a good place for a fancy tea or beer.
This obelisk honors Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell, more than any other man, symbolizes Ireland’s progressive spirit of the 19th century. In the 1880s, as a Member of Parliament in London, Parnell lobbied hard for independence from Britain, or what was called Home Rule. With his charisma and negotiating skills, it looked like Parnell was just about to convince the British to grant independence… peacefully. Then, in 1890, with freedom at Ireland’s fingertips, a scandal broke around Parnell – a sex scandal, involving Parnell and his mistress. Just like that, he was drummed out of politics, scuttling his independence initiative.
After that, Ireland had to turn to violence to win its freedom.
As you recall, though the Rising was crushed, it ignited an unstoppable desire for freedom. In the 1918 parliamentary elections, the pro-independence party won by a landslide. That emboldened members of Parliament to stand up to Britain. They brazenly set up their own Irish Parliament here in Dublin.
That act of defiance, in 1919, sparked what’s called the War of Independence. For the next two years, Irish rebels took up arms against British troops. Some of the most bitter battles took place right here along O’Connell Street. In all, a thousand people died.
The Irish wore Britain down, and the Brits proposed a compromise. They would allow most of the Irish isle to be free, as long as the north remained under British rule. The Irish people argued over the proposal. Some wanted the treaty – others violently opposed it. That sparked two more years of fighting – not against the British but between Irish, as pro-treaty Irish fought anti-treaty Irish. It’s called the Irish Civil War.
It’s like if our American ancestors had just fought the Revolutionary War, then the Civil War, back to back.
After countless fire-bombing, street fights, and assassinations, an agreement was finally reached. And in 1923, the modern Republic of Ireland was born.
The Parnell Monument is full of symbolism that captures Ireland’s complicated history.
First, there’s the proud statue of Parnell himself. He stand next to the symbol of Ireland – the Celtic harp. The gold inscription is from one of Parnell’s stirring speeches:
“No Man,” he declared, ” has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation.”
Parnell was a visionary. Like Daniel O’Connell before him, he advocated freedom through peace. And like other patriots, he also served time at Kilmainham Gaol. Parnell was fighting so the entire Irish Isle could be free.
To that point, look at the names ringing the monument. It lists the four ancient provinces of Ireland and all 32 Irish counties.
That’s significant, because this encompasses the entire Island – both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was Parnell’s glorious vision – of a modern, democratic nation that was independent of Britain peaceful, and that united all of Ireland.
And then came that sex scandal – followed by years of Civil War- violence and division.
The park celebrates the freedom Ireland enjoys today. But it wasn’t all rainbows and leprechauns getting there. Even after the Irish Civil War ended, Ireland was still sharply dividend. Politically, the island was split in two, with two different nations: Northern Ireland remained British (and mostly Protestant), while the south was Irish (and Catholic). Bitter feuding continued throughout the 20th century… what was called in Northern Ireland… “The Troubles.”
An armed band of underground fighters called the Irish Republican Army carried on the fight. Their mission? To drive the British out of Northern Ireland, so the island could be completely united under Irish rule. Thanks to the IRA, much of the 20th-century was marked with a constant litany of violence: riots, car-bombings, assassinations, and Irish-on-Irish hatred.
Finally, in the 1990s, cooler heads prevailed. A ceasefire was called, and all of Ireland’s voices were brought peacefully into the political process. As the 21st century dawned, Ireland entered the new era of peace and prosperity.
The Garden of Remembrance – This is an oasis of peace. It has many layers of powerful symbolism. This “Garden of Remembrance” remembers all the people who gave their lives for Irish freedom. Think of all the failed Irish rebellions: 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867… plus all those politicians who lobbied for peaceful change – Daniel O’Connell, William O’Brien, James Larkin, Patrick Pearse, Charles Parnell, and so many more. This park was dedicated in 1966 – the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. And it was built on the exact spot where that Easter Rising’s leaders were held before being transferred to Kilmainham Gaol and their execution.
The park’s symbolism goes even deeper. The long pool is in the shape of a cross, recognizing Ireland’s Christian heritage. The mosaics on the bottom of the pool go back even farther – to Ireland’s ancient Celtic roots. The wavy patterns make the pond look like one of Ireland’s timeless rivers. Other mosaics depict old Celtic swords and shields. These are symbolic of Ireland’s proud fighting heritage. They also represent how those early Irish warriors eventually proclaimed peace with the ritual of throwing their weapons into a river.
Modern Ireland has made a point of embracing its Celtic heritage. The Gaelic language and traditinoal legends have been revived. And in 1937, the Irish people even adopted a new name for their country from the old Celtic language. They called it Eire.
The statue at the end pool depicts four siblings – representing the people of Ireland. They look like they’re twisting in agony. They’re in the midst of the painful process of transforming from ordinary mortals to beautiful swans. It refers to that line from the Yeats poem about the 1916 Easter Rising. How, despite the violence of revolution, something good comes from it… “a terrible beauty is born.”
Nearby on a wall is another poem. It begins: “in the darkness of despair we saw a vision. We lit the light of hope.
And the poem ends: “The vision became a reality. Winter became summer, bondage became freedom, and this we left you as your inheritance. O generations of freedom, remember us – the generations of the vision.”
One of modern Ireland’s most stirring moments occurred here in 2011, when Queen Elizabeth II came to Ireland. She laid a wreath at this statue and bowed her head in silence. It was a remarkable show of respect for the Irish rebels – rebels who had fought and died trying to gain freedom from her own United Kingdom. This was a hugely cathartic moment for both nations.
Thanks to Ireland’s rebels and thanks to its visionaries – today’s independent Ireland was born. Though the Irish nation still has its struggles, it’s now going about them in a more peaceful way.