Cheering onlookers crane to see new Spire installed

After many delays, the monument designed to represent a modern Ireland reaching for the sky finally got off the ground yesterday, to the cheers of thousands who gathered for the occasion.

Held up by everything from a High Court challenge to high winds, the Spire of Dublin at last assumed its full 120-metre height in the centre of O'Connell Street. In doing so, it more than filled the gap created almost 37 years ago, when Lord Nelson suddenly vacated his position as the capital's most prominent monument.

Like a smaller version of Apollo 13 (albeit one that most observers hoped would not be returning to Earth soon), the final 38-metre section was lifted vertically from the ground, accompanied by blaring car horns and a shout of "Come on Ireland" from a voice in the crowd. The tip was lowered into place shortly after noon, provoking what looked like a delayed response to the Angelus bell, as crowds of onlookers gazed skywards, in quiet reflection. But this is a secular, non-political spire, and even as the applause for its completion was fading away, the debate was resuming about what, if anything, it stood for.

Originally planned to coincide with the Millennium celebrations - which also marked a high-point of boom-fuelled optimism - the Spire was fated to be erected in more sober times. On top of that, yesterday's dull weather did little for a monument designed to reflect the ambient light, and to act as a giant sun-dial marking the passing of the day (a role which, for the time-being, was still being performed by Clery's clock).

But the Spire may, as intended, mark a turn in the long decline of O'Connell Street, completed as it is in the week that the city council moved to fill another long-standing hole in the infrastucture, with confirmation of its compulsory purchase order for the Carlton site. Under the new monument, though, the arguments raged on, with an apparent divide between young and old. "It's brilliant and we deserve it," said a youngish woman, representative of one camp.

One of the losers in the design competition, Mary Duniyva, complained that the spire would "stick its ugly neck up all over Dublin" and hoped it would yet make way for her plan of a column with a sculpted sun on top.

One historical figure who turned his back on the proceedings altogether was Big Jim Larkin, whose nearby statue faces south. But the man himself might have approved of the spire's general thrust.

As his plaque reminded us, he once said: "The great appear great because we are on our knees: let us rise."

Yesterday, symbolically at least, we were getting well above ourselves.