Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [71]
Take bus 25, 25A, 26, 68 or 69 from the city centre to get here.
O’Connell Street & Around
After decades of playing second fiddle to Grafton St and the other byways of the southside, the northside’s grandest thoroughfare is finally getting its mojo back, even if it hasn’t quite recaptured the grandeur that once made it Dublin’s finest avenue. Still, the evidence of O’Connell St’s 18th-century glory lines the street in the shape of a bunch of fabulous buildings, fascinating museums and a fair few of the city’s cultural hot spots too – just a handful of reasons to cross O’Connell Bridge and take on the northside.
* * *
O’CONNELL STREET STATUARY
Although overshadowed by the Spire, O’Connell St is lined with statues of Irish history’s good and great. The big daddy of them all is the ‘Liberator’ himself, Daniel O’Connell (Map), whose massive bronze bulk soars high above the street at the bridge end. The four winged figures at his feet represent O’Connell’s supposed virtues: patriotism, courage, fidelity and eloquence.
O’Connell is rivalled for drama by the spread-armed figure of trade-union leader Jim Larkin (1876–1947; Map), just south of the General Post Office; you can almost hear the eloquent tirade.
Looking on with a bemused air from the corner of pedestrianised North Earl St is a small statue of James Joyce (Map), whom wagsters like to refer to as ‘the Prick with the Stick’. Joyce would have loved the vulgar rhyme.
Further north is the statue of Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856; Map), the ‘Apostle of Temperance’ – a hopeless role in Ireland. This quixotic task, however, also resulted in a Liffey bridge bearing his name. The northern end of the street is completed by the imposing statue of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–91; Map), Home Rule advocate and victim of Irish morality.
* * *
O’CONNELL STREET
It’s amazing what a few hundred million euros and a new vision will do to a street plagued by years of neglect, a criminally blind development policy and a history as a hothouse of street trouble. It’s difficult to fathom why O’Connell St (Map), once so proud and elegant, could have been so humbled that the street’s top draws were amusement arcades and fast-food outlets. Poker machines and burger joints on the street that was the main stage for the Easter Rising in 1916? How could it all go so wrong?
It’s a far cry from the 18th-century days of empire, when as Drogheda St (after Henry, Viscount Moore, Earl of Drogheda) it cut a swath through a city brimming with Georgian optimism. It became O’Connell St in 1924, but only after spending a few decades as Sackville St – a tribute to a lord lieutenant of Ireland. Whatever its name, it was always an imposing street, at least until the fast-food joints and the crappy shops started invading the retail spaces along it. Thankfully, Dublin City Council is committed to a thorough reappraisal of the street’s appearance: a lot done, more to do.
The first project was the impressive Spire (the Monument of Light; Map), which graced the spot once occupied by a statue of Admiral Nelson (which disappeared in explosive fashion, thanks to the IRA, in 1966). Soaring 120m into the sky, it is, apparently, the world’s tallest sculpture, although that hardly impresses the locals, who refer to it as the ‘biggest needle around’, in reference to the drug blight of the north inner city. Other projects have seen the widening of the pavements and the limiting of traffic, although the street will truly be grand when the plethora of fast-food joints are given the elbow.
GENERAL