Visitors to Dublin often comment on the strange comic nicknames given by the populace to some of Dublin's statues and other monuments. Others are struck by controversies that have often arisen over statues in Dublin, and the disappearance of some of the city's most prominent monuments at the hands of the IRA.

Nelson's Pillar
Blown up by Irish republicans in 1966

Dublin's most prominent monument, Nelson's Pillar, which stood near the General Post Office (GPO) in the centre of O'Connell Street, was blown up by the IRA in 1966, as their way of commemorating the Easter Rising. Other monuments still surviving on O'Connell Street include statues honouring Charles Stewart Parnell at the north end of the street; at the southern end stands a statue of Daniel O'Connell. Other statues on the street include one of trades union leader James Larkin and an illegally erected statue to the Sacred Heart.

On the site of the Pillar, a new monument was erected in Janary 2003. Officially named the Spire of Dublin, this tall needle-like structure has already received a number of nicknames including The Spike, The Stiletto in the Ghetto, The Metropole, The Stiffy by the Liffey and the North Pole. (O'Connell Street is on the northside of Dublin). To erect the new monument, a notorious 1980s monument to the personified river Liffey, Anna Livia, was removed from nearby on O'Connell St. The river was represented by a woman sitting on a slope with water running down past her, bubbling. It rapidly came to be nicknamed the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, the Hoor in the Sewer ('hoor' is a dialectal Irish version of 'whore') and Viagra Falls.

North Earl Street runs right onto the base of the Spire. At this junction is a statue of James Joyce, the world-famous Irish writer, walking with a cane in his hand. It is known to the Dublin populace as the Prick with the Stick.

Just by the Ha'penny Bridge is a statue of two women sitting on a bench engaged in conversation with their shopping bags at their feet - they are known famously as the Hags with the Bags.

A short distance away from O'Connell Street by the banks of the Liffey lies the site of an ill-fated millennium clock, erected in the mid-1990s to count down the hours, minutes and seconds to the year 2000. The clock, with a green-illuminated digital face, was placed underneath the surface of the river by the bank so that the time shone up through the water. Plans were originally underway to attach a postcard booth that would personally print postcards for tourists, each bearing the exact amount of time left at that moment until the dawn of the new millennium. However, the clock entered a period of chronic ill health: it had to be temporarily removed to allow rowing-boat race to pass by, and in the months that followed had repeated problems with letting in water and failing to display the time correctly. It was removed after a brief period, but not before it had been nicknamed the Time in the Slime by the people of Dublin.

Daniel O'Connell
19th century nationalist leader, whose statue stands on O'Connell St.

Henry Grattan
19th century statue in College Green

Another statue to earn a dubious but comical nickname is a monument at the bottom of Grafton Street representing Molly Malone, a fictitious fishmonger featured in Dublin's anthem, Molly Malone, who is shown, dressed scantily, wheeling a cart. The statue was erected to celebrate Dublin's millennium in 1988, and is generally known in Dublin as the Tart with the Cart.

In Merrion Square, inside the north west corner gateway, there's a painted statue of Oscar Wilde, siting on a large granite boulder. This has been called at least once The Fag on the Crag.

Curiously, given that Ireland has been independent for over eighty years, no statues in Dublin commemorate independent Irish leaders. Statues were never erected to figures like Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, W.T. Cosgrave, Sean Lemass or any of the presidents of Ireland. One of the few elected politicians commemorated with a statue is Henry Grattan, a leading politician of the 1780s in the old Irish Parliament. A nearby statue of patriot Thomas Davis has earned the nickname Frankenstein due to the out of scale hands and odd shaped body given to the nationalist leader in the 1960s work.

Dublin was once famed for its high quality equestrian statues, including the Gough monument in the Phoenix Park and the King Billy William of Orange statue in College Green. Both these monuments and others were systematically blown up by the IRA in the 1920s and 1930s.

One statue not blown up was the statue of Queen Victoria, which stood in the forecourt of Leinster House, the seat of the Oireachtas Éireann (Irish Parliament). Referred to perjoratively as the "Auld Bitch", the statue was removed in 1947. It was left in storage before being sold to the city of Sydney in Australia in the late 1980s.

Queen Victoria
Unveiled outside Leinster House by Edward VII in 1904, removed 1947.

Famous Irish Statues

• O'Connell Monument (Daniel O'Connell) - O'Connell St.
• Parnell Monument (Charles Stewart Parnell) - O'Connell St.
• Sir John Gray - O'Connell St.
• Jim Larkin - O'Connell St.
• Nelson's Pillar (Lord Horatio Nelson) - O'Connell St. (blown up by republicans)
• Spire of Dublin - O'Connell St. (on site of Nelson's Pillar)
• Thomas Davis Statue - College Green
• Henry Grattan - College Green
• James Joyce - North Earl St.
• Molly Malone (Tart with the Cart) Grafton St.
• Anna Livia (Floozie in the Jacouzzi) moved from O'Connell St. new location undecided
• Killy Billy's Statue (William of Orange) - College Green (blown up by republicans)
• Queen Victoria- outside Leinster House given to Sydney, Australia
• Archbishop Coyningham - Kildare Place
• Robert Emmet - St. Stephen's Green
• The Famine Monument - Custom House Quay...