Dame Street scene, College Green Dublin Ireland circa 1895 with William III Statue and Henry Grattan statue in background
L'Estrange, Robert Augustus Henry (ca. 1895) Dame Street scene, College Green Dublin Ireland circa 1895 with William III Statue and Henry Grattan statue in background. [Image]
Available under Licence Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication.
Download (Image (JPEG), 1MB)
Abstract
The below is taken from the brief commentary on the statue of King William III that comes in ‘Ireland In Pictures’, 1898
This equestrian statue of William III stands in College Green, and has stood there, more or less, since A.D 1701. We say “more or less” because no statue in the world, perhaps, has been subject to so many vicissitudes. It has been insulted, mutilated and blown up so many times, that the original figure, never particularly graceful, is now a battered wreck, pieced and patched together, like an old, worn out garment.
« The Newsboy of a Dublin long gone.Mena Cribben of Santry » King Billy On College Green (‘Ireland In Pictures, 1898’) July 4, 2012 by Donal I recently picked up this great image of the King William of Orange statue on College Green, which is taken from ‘Ireland In Pictures’, released in 1898. We’ve had a series on the site here dealing with the statues of Dublin, which is still in its infancy, and I collect old original photographs, postcards and the like showing Dublin monuments and statues. It’s a cheap and cheerful hobby, and not quite as bad as stamps.
The King William of Orange statue on College Green was eventually removed in 1929, following an explosion in the early hours of Armistice Day that year. A bomb had also been placed at the base of the bronze statue of King George II in Stephens Green. It had sat on College Green since 1701, and was frequently the target of vandals (more on that below) but the explosion didn’t mark the end of its traumatic life as the King’s head was removed from the statue while it was placed in storage in Corporation Yard, Hanover Street!
Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – June 1820) was a member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century.
He was the leader of the Independent Irish Parliament of 1783-1800 and opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Ireland and Great Britain.