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.
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By David Selzer