FROM THE ARCHIVES:In the early hours of March 8th, 1966, the top half of the 40 metre high Nelson Pillar was toppled by a republican bomb. Six days later the Army completed the job, as this report described. - JOE JOYCE
THERE WAS a crack as of a giant whip; a blue flash with a red core, and that was the end of the Nelson Pillar at exactly 3.30am today. Nobody was injured, but windows in the GPO. and nearby shops were damaged.
An hour and a half before the demolition by the Army, members of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland tried to save the remnants. They unsuccessfully applied for an injunction to a High Court judge at a midnight sitting of the court at his home, but the application was turned down.
Thousands of people thronged the city centre for many hours before the blast and at 3am cars jammed the streets leading to O’Connell street. People sang and danced as they waited for the count-down and there was a great deal of cheering and clapping when the pillar fell.
Commandant James Murphy used a condenser exploder to trigger off the explosion. On the commanding officer’s order to fire, a charge was wound up and, after a few seconds when a red light shone on the top of the apparatus, a button was depressed to trigger off the charges around the base of the column.
At 3.30am there was a blue flash, with a red flame, and clouds of dust swirled around the plinth. Seconds later came the all-clear, and hundreds of souvenir-hunters poured from side streets and raced to the remains of the Pillar. Police tried unsuccessfully to control the crowds, but it was only at O’Connell street, where hundreds of cars were parked, that it was possible to keep the crowds back.
The biggest gathering was on O’Connell Bridge, where hundreds of young people converged. “It was a lovely bang” and “the Army did a great job,” were some of the immediate reactions.
After the explosion, Colonel R. G. Mew, Director of the Army Corps of Engineers, said: “Well, it came down . . . not quite as we anticipated because the horizontal joints were very much more rotten that [sic] we could find out without taking it down. Nobody, so far as we know, was injured and there was not an enormous amount of damage. Most of it was broken glass. There was just about as much damage as we had expected.”. . .
Colonel Mew had predicted that the pillar would fall northwards, jack-knifing as it fell after a segment had been removed from the north side by the blast. The weakness of the horizontal joints, however, meant that the base of it exploded outwards on all sides, and the pillar was left to topple on all sides of the plinth.
Tons of rubble cascaded to the southern side of the pillar and on both sides instead of on to the specially prepared bed of sand. Colonel Mew said that it was obvious within seconds that the explosion had not gone exactly as he had earlier detailed.
http://url.ie/a3y3