O'Connell Street is the widest street in Dublin and the one the country argues over — every monument on it is a position taken, every gap a thing that was blown up. Walk it south to north and you walk through a compressed century of Irish politics.
Start on O'Connell Bridge and take the full width in. The Liberator himself, Daniel O'Connell, stands at the river end; circle the base and find the bullet hole left in a bronze angel from 1916, never repaired. Up the central median to the Spire, the stainless needle that replaced Nelson's Pillar after the IRA removed it in 1966 — 120 metres of nothing-in-particular, and oddly the better for it.
The General Post Office is the reason the street matters. Press a hand to the portico columns and feel the shrapnel scars from the Rising, kept on purpose. Larkin throws his arms wide across the road, frozen mid-speech. The walk ends at the Parnell Monument, his defiant line cut into the stone. The Luas back is right there.
