Now the flyover has been demolished – that simple

solution to traffic congestion,

leaping over library, art gallery

and museum to disgorge suburbia’s

commuters into the city’s erstwhile

mercantile heart – when you drive down from Low Hill

on the new three lane carriageway, flanked

by immense hoardings for the latest movies

and multi-apartment blocks for students,

you can see the Duke of Wellington,

Protestant Dubliner, on his column

against the sky above St George’s Plateau.

His back is turned on the vestiges

of the Irish Catholic slums, and his gaze fixed

on the railway terminus. He was

a talisman for the merchants who paid

for his statue. He kept trade free for sugar,

cotton, and slavery.