O'Connell Street statues to be cleaned in €300,000 programme

The historic statues on Dublin's O'Connell Street are to be cleaned up in a four-month conservation programme which started this week.

As part of the programme, which will cost €300,000, the bronze statues will be coated in a thin layer of wax to provide protection against pollution.

The programme is the latest phase of the refurbishment of the capital's main thoroughfare; further works to improve the appearance of the top of O'Connell Street are due to start later in the year.

Cleaning and refurbishment of the O'Connell and Parnell statues at either end of the street will account for most of the budget, according to Dublin City Council's heritage officer Donncha Ó Dúlaing.

The four victory angels and 30 figures on the O'Connell statue will have to be cleaned delicately using bristle brushes.

"The bronze is very black, though generally in good nick, but it has no protection against pollution," says Mr Ó Dúlaing.

The other statues to be refurbished are those of Jim Larkin, William Smith O'Brien, Father Matthew and Sir John Grey. Two nearby figures are also included in the programme - James Joyce in North Earl Street and the Sheahan memorial on Burgh Quay, which commemorates an RIC man who was overcome by fumes trying to rescue a worker in the sewers.

Information panels on each statue will be mounted on the surrounding hoardings, according to Mr Ó Dúlaing.

A number of the statues have incurred damage over the years, but there are no plans to repair these defects. They include bullet holes in the O'Connell statue which date back to the 1916 Rising and damage to an angel from a loyalist bomb in the 1960s. Father Matthew has been missing a finger since Nelson's Pillar but he too will have to soldier on without it.

"The defects are part of the history of our nation, and we won't be touching them," says Mr Ó Dúlaing.