The Spire of Dublin, alternatively titled the Monument of Light, is a large, stainless steel, pin-like monument 120 metres (390 ft) in height, located on the site of the former Nelson's Pillar on O'Connell Street, the main thoroughfare of Dublin, Ireland.
Seen from O'Connell Street
Nelson's Pillar stood on the site of the Spire until it was destroyed by a bomb in 1966.
The Spire looking towards the Liffey
View from the bottom of the construction
Nelson's Pillar was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, built in the centre of what was then Sackville Street in Dublin, Ireland. Completed in 1809 when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, it survived until March 1966, when it was severely damaged by explosives planted by Irish republicans. Its remnants were later destroyed by the Irish Army.
Nelson's Pillar, c. 1830
William Blakeney, whose Sackville Street statue preceded Nelson's
Nelson's death aboard HMS Victory. Painting by Denis Dighton, c. 1825
Lower Sackville Street and the Pillar depicted by William Henry Bartlett in the early 1840s, around the time of Thackeray's visit