O'Connell Street: the great boulevard and its monuments
The GPO and its bullet-marked columns, the Spire, the Liberator, and Parnell at the top. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. O'Connell Bridge
Start at the river end, on the bridge that's famously wider than it is long. Look north up the full width of the street before you step onto it; this is the one view that takes the whole boulevard in at once.

2. Daniel O'Connell Monument
The Liberator stands at the bridge end, draped in bronze and ringed by winged victories. Walk round the base and find the bullet hole in the angel — a souvenir of 1916 that nobody bothered to patch.

3. The Spire (Monument of Light)
The 120-metre stainless needle that replaced Nelson's Pillar, blown up in 1966. Stand at the foot and look straight up until it disappears into the cloud. Locals have a nickname for it; ask one, the answer's better unprinted.

4. The General Post Office
The headquarters of the 1916 Rising. Run your hand along the granite columns of the portico — the pockmarks are bullet and shrapnel scars, left deliberately. Step inside for the Witness History exhibition if you've an hour; the cú-chulainn statue is the quiet draw.

5. Jim Larkin Monument
The labour leader caught mid-speech, arms flung wide, opposite the GPO. He led the 1913 Lockout from roughly this spot. The pose is the whole point — stand where the crowd would have stood and look up at him.

6. Parnell Monument
The obelisk closes the street at the top, with Parnell in bronze and his own words cut into the granite: no man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. Read it, then the Luas at Parnell is a step away.

O'Connell Street: the great boulevard and its monuments