Thomas Moore Statue - College Street, Dublin, Ireland - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

A letter in the Irish Times website comments on the Thomas Moore ststue:

Thomas Moore’s moving statue.

Sir, – Whatever about the location of Thomas Moore’s statue, gone for now from the traffic island on Westmoreland Street, it is not one of Dublin’s favourites. The sculptor Christopher Moore, no relation, who was based in London, was awarded the commission following a public competition in which John Hogan, Ireland’s greatest neo-classical sculptor, was a defeated entrant.

Two fine plaster models that Hogan submitted for the competition are now stored in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Christopher Moore’s statue evoked a storm of criticism in 1857 and was unlucky as well as unloved. In spite of the efforts of the fundraising committee, there was not enough money to cast it in bronze, so zinc was used instead. When the nine-foot sculpture of the national poet with his voluminous cloak was being lifted on to the pedestal, the rope snapped and he was decapitated.

When the statue was repaired, the sun melted the solder and it drooped forward into the position that James Joyce described as its “servile head” in A Portrait of the Artist.

In 1944, when members of the Thomas Moore Society laid a wreath on the statue, Patrick Kavanagh, who was one of the spectators, wrote: “The cowardice of Ireland is in his statue/No poet’s honoured when they wreathe this stone/An old shopkeeper who has dealt in the marrowbone of his neighbours looks at you/Dim-eyed, degenerate, he is admiring his god.”

The last word goes to the Dublin wit who suggested that the inscription beneath the statue should be, in the words of one of Moore’s Irish Melodies, “Blame not the Bard”. – Yours, etc.

The Archiseek website tells us about this 150% life-size statue of Thomas Moore:

At the junction of College Street and Westmoreland Street, stranded on a traffic island with a disused public toilet is this statue to the Irish bard Thomas Moore. The sculptor was commissioned by a committee, but the result was poorly received in architectural circles. The Irish Builder described it as “that horrible exportation from London, the Moore Statue”.

Appropriately for a statue beside public washrooms, one of Moore’s most famous tunes is “The Meeting Of The Waters.”

The LUAS Cross City website also tells us:

Artist: Christopher Moore
Date: 1857
Dimension:
Entire: 620cm
Figure: 285cm
Plinth: 335cm x 465cm
Materials:
Figure: Bronze
Plinth: Granite
Commission: Paid for by public subscription

The Thomas Moore Statue was erected in 1857 following a public subscription. The sculptor was Christopher Moore while the granite plinth was constructed by the firm of Elkingtons. Thomas Moore is popularly regarded as the Bard of Ireland. Born on Aungier Street in 1779 he studied first at Trinity College Dublin before reading law at the Middle Temple in London. It was as a poet, balladeer and singer that Moore first found fame. His best known songs and poems are perhaps The Meeting of the Waters, The Minstrel Boy, The Last Rose of Summer and  Believe  Me,  if  all  Those  Endearing  Young  Charms.  He  was  very  well  received  in  high society in London and was well patronised. He was an associate of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
and  Lord  Byron  and  infamously  destroyed  Byron’s  own  manuscript  memoir  following  his death.  In  later  life  Moore  turned  to  writing  satirical  plays  as  well  as  novels  and  biographies.

He remained in England for most of his working life and died there in 1852.

Moore’s  statue  consists  of  a  bronze  figure  set  on  a  rather  stern  and  massive  granite  plinth. When first unveiled the bronze was derided by many connoisseurs, but over time it has been accepted as a worthy if not exceptional piece of public sculpture.

The Biography website tells us about Thomas Moore:

Journalist, Poet, Songwriter, Singer (1779–1852).

Synopsis

Thomas Moore was born on May 28, 1779, in Dublin, Ireland. Close friends with writer Lord Byron, Moore was entrusted with the famous romantic's memoirs after his death. Moore tried in vain to save them from being destroyed after selling the copyright, with Byron's approval, to publisher John Murray. The memoirs were burned by men representing the interests of Byron's estranged wife and his half sister. As for his own work, Moore wrote 130 original poems set to folk melodies, including "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer." His poem "Lalla Rookh" is credited as the most translated poem of its time. Moore died in 1852.