Nelson's Pillar

And also the HSE telling you to go back to HGN.

It's like telling you to go up to Nelson's Pillar and tell them it's gone.

There's no answers from HGN for anybody.

I believe the CEO was down there.

Yeah, make sure you use the Universe app.

13 special trains went up and special trams from Nelson's Pillar, which is where the Spire is now on O'Connell Street, were bringing people up to Croke Park that day.

So a massive, massive, massive event.

One person, very quickly, I want to talk about who was on that Clare team, very notable person, a man called John Fox from Newmarket and Fergus.

Talk to me about comedy related to actual events in history.

I'm thinking, for example, of the blowing up of Nelson's Pillar.

Yes.

As it happens, I was the early announcer.

[laughs]

And said, "Well, okay, go on." So I got in and opened the station.

I was tempted very much to say, "From a Nelson's Pillar-less GPO," but I didn't.

I was good.

Now, you may be old enough to remember meeting people at Nelson's Pillar or even Clery's clock, but in the last few days, Dublin D, the new sculpture, has been unveiled at the top of Grafton Street.

It's nearly three meters tall, and the sculpture spells out Dublin, with each letter representing a different aspect of the capital.

So, how is it going down? Our reporter, Elizabeth Hurst, has been finding out more about the new artwork.

It would've been a busy place in Levy's time, too, and there are some buildings that he would still recognize, like the GPO and the Gresham Hotel.

But the trams are long gone, replaced by the Luas, and we have the Spire instead of Nelson's Pillar, which was blown up in 1966.

This is the setting for Ferdinand Levy's poem, Down O'Connell Street.

Down O'Connell Street.

You know, that was the world as it was then.

And they went up Nelson's Pillar because it had this great viewing spot and you could look out over Dublin and they took a photo on, I guess, some kind of camera that they had at the time.

And they kept the photo.

But what's crazy is they got married in late February.

And so they were, you know, in Dublin a week later.

And about a week after that is when Nelson's pillar was blown up.

So it's this kind of great image.

First of all, it's a totally, you know, everyday photo of Dublin city centre in the mid 60s.