Fr Pat Noise Memorial
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But it’s cheaper than having to restore the bridge Stephen – have you not learned the system at this stage?
Perhaps it could commemorate a past view? There could be a plaque on the east parapet showing the view towards the Custom House without the Loop Line, and one on the west parapet showing the view upriver without Calatrava’s arches that don’t play by the rules.
Or how about a memorial to the Fr Pat Noise memorial? “This plaque commemorates a plaque that commemorated a fictitious character…”
And then when it gets nicked, there would be a plaque commemorating a plaque commemorating a plaque…It’s still there by the way. Had a look at it last night, Pretty small, did it really replace some plaque for the chime in the slime ? A very neat fit if it did, whomever must have measured up first. V. bizarre.
Surely a plaque to Flann O’Brien is the only appropriate memorial for this site – given the nonsense that has led to this situation
It says that the plaque filled the spot where the Millenium Clock used to be but i always thought that the Clock was actually in the water! Can someone tell me about the Millenium Clock?
The clock was indeed in the water and could be viewed from the bridge. The idea was that a machine on the bridge would print postcards with the exact time left until the millenium on each one. I would assume the hole was cut in the bridge to hold this machine, although as far as i know it was never actually installed.
I remember the postcard machine being pretty big, I thought it stood on the bridge rather than mounted on the parapet. Could be wrong though it was a long time ago… I have a postcard from it here somewhere – 20 pee well spent!
This has been stuck in my head for a while now, no idea where I put the card. Could be worth a fortune now!. However I did do some digging on the millennium clock:
The official name was the “Millennium Countdown” and it was the winner of a Dublin City Corporation competition held in 1996 for a countdown monument.
It consisted of the digital countdown tethered just below the water in the liffey, surrounded by mechanical reeds intended to emit a sound and light display.
On the bridge a “steel bollard” was to dispense souvenier postcards stamped with the number of seconds till the millennium. I recall the “bollard” was more like a big stainless steel box but I may be wrong. The postcards were real and it did work for a time.
When clock counted down to 000000000 the plan was that it would detatch itself and float off down river like at a viking funeral. The reeds were to combust, no doubt adding to the sense of occasion.
After the recent duck race where the organisers failed to check the tides and had the ducks going the wrong way up the Liffey I wonder would the same thing have happened on the big night?
The reeds in particular always looked messy, the clock looked good for a while. I think it was for a rowboat race or possibly the liffey swim that the clock was “temporarily” removed. Plan at time was to clean the clock and somehow address the slime attaching to it.
I dug most of this info from Angela Brady and Robin Mallalieu’s “Dublin , a guide to recent architecture” published back in 1997 (- well worth a look, don’t know if still in print). Here’s the closing comment from the book:
“The Architects [Hassett Ducatez] list their concepts as ‘a study of time, the immateriality of Time and the forces of Nature….. the most beautiful and astonishing clock in the world’. After such a build-up the reality can only dissapoint.”
Well that dissapoint certaintly came to pass!
Has anyone been able to locate a picture of what the steel bollard of the Millenium Clock actually looked like? I’m very interested to see if anyone has been able to find photos of the damage that was done to the bridge, not to mention the postcard dispenser or the postcards themselves. (Not to drive you mad again, Lotts.) It almost seems the stuff of myth now. I want some hard evidence.
Between the failed chime in the slime and Fr. Pat, this location seems to be a nesting place of transient memorials. A museum of spurned memorials might be in order. Pieces of the Millenium Clock, the pink tank of Prague… Woe to the project that seeks to fill the empty space!
From today’s Irish Times:
Plaque to fictitious ‘Fr Noise’ to be taken off bridge again
Alison HealyHe secretly arrived on Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge in 2004 and remained there for two years before his cover was blown. But now Fr Pat Noise’s days on the bridge are finally over.
Dublin City Council will make a second attempt today to remove the mysterious Fr Pat Noise plaque from O’Connell Bridge after pranksters replaced the original, which was removed a couple of months ago.
The bronze plaque commemorates the fictitious priest who “died in suspicious circumstances when his carriage plunged into the Liffey on August 10th, 1919”.
The plaque was brought to public attention by the Sunday Tribune last May, although video footage supplied by the hoaxers showed it being mounted on the busy bridge in April 2004 as pedestrians passed by. It was thought that the work was carried out by two brothers and was a tribute to their father.
The name “Fr Pat Noise” is a play on pater noster , the Latin for “our father”. The portrait on the plaque is said to be a likeness of the men’s father. Dublin City Council did not know about the plaque until the media drew attention to it.
A council spokeswoman confirmed that the plaque had been taken away by the council two months ago while work was being carried out on the bridge. She said it was difficult to pinpoint when the replacement arrived, but it would be removed today.
The spokeswoman said that the council had not identified the hoaxers, but if they had been caught they could have faced charges for defacing public property: “It’s quite serious. It has damaged the bridge.”
She added that the council would be taking steps to ensure that another plaque could not be mounted on the bridge. The plaque was placed in an indent left when part of the ill-fated “Millennium Countdown” clock was removed.
In an e-mail to The Irish Times last year from a “friend of the artist”, the hoaxer wrote that the interest in the plaque “reflects our famous sense of humour, and that unquantifiable Irish quality that sees us fight for the underdog every time, something that others never understand”.
Last December, the south-east area committee of Dublin City Council spoke in favour of leaving it in place. The plaque generated interest at home and abroad, with websites conducting polls asking whether it should remain or be replaced by a permanent memorial to some cause.
© 2007 The Irish Times
@cobalt wrote:
From today’s Irish Times:
The spokeswoman said that the council had not identified the hoaxers, but if they had been caught they could have faced charges for defacing public property: “It’s quite serious. It has damaged the bridge.”
the council repeats the blatent lie
“pranksters replaced the original, which was removed a couple of months ago.”
I hope another one is put in its place!
@ctesiphon wrote:
Pot, meet kettle.
you really have to source you quotes! I can’t find where you got that from? and i was probably joking >: |
Pranksters and hoaxers, is it? Facing charges for defacing public property, eh? Perhaps we should erect a battalion of Fr Pat Noises on Spar shopfronts and see how quickly the DCC acts.
The Irish Times article caught my attention for its claim that Fr Pat Noise arrived in 2004 – a claim that was also put forth in an Irish Independent article from 15 May 2006. But, as befits an urban legend, there appear to be wildly differing reports on when the plaque first arrived. Has it actually been confirmed that the plaque appeared three years ago or is this just what the RTE video footage claimed? After all, can you really trust the testimony of a couple of chisel-wielding pranksters?
Also, you have to love how in every article, the clock is always referred to as ill-fated. Cut and paste journalism? Cryptomnesia? Or just, ahem, linguistic continuity?:
‘The plaque was placed in an indent left when part of the ill-fated Millennium Countdown clock was removed.’ (Irish Times, 22 May 2007)
‘The fake plaque, which was installed in the space vacated by the ill-fated Millennium clock, went unnoticed’ (Irish Independent, 15 May 2006)
‘…meet the same fate as the ill-fated Millennium Clock.’ (Irish Independent, 10 November 1998)
‘workmen putting the ill-fated clock… in the water’ (Irish Independent, 10 December 1996)
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