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A Spire to Inspire
Stainless steel spire to rise above historic Dublin. By Dean Jobb.
Nickel magazine, October 2002 -- Dublin's lord mayor, Michael Mulcahy, calls
it a "spire to inspire." He is referring to The Monument of Light, a sleek, 125-metre stainless
steel monument being erected to mark the dawn of the new millennium.
Pointing skyward over the historic Irish capital like an enormous needle, the monument is being built at a
cost of 4 million euros and is the focal point of a project aimed at rejuvenating the O'Connell Street
district, Dublin's traditional shopping and cultural hub. More commonly known as the O'Connell Street Spire,
the monument was designed Ian Ritchie Architects of London, which won a competition to replace Nelson's
Pillar, a 19th-century memorial to the British admiral, which was destroyed in 1966.
Industeel UK of Worcester, a division of Luxemburg-based steel giant Arcelor Group, will supply 130 tonnes
of hot-rolled
S31603 stainless steel to create the spire. In all 86 rectangular plates are needed, varying in size from
4.7 x 2 metres to 0.5 x 0.45 metre and ranging in thickness from 20 to 35 millimetres. The spire will taper
from a three-metre diameter at the base to just 15 centimetres in diameter at the tip, which will house a
powerful light.
Industeel's plant in Le Creusot, France, has produced the plates, which were beveled, shaped to radius and
finely polished for shipment to Radley Engineering of Ireland, and assembled into conical sections of between
12 and 18 metres that will be stacked and welded together on-site.
"The external finish is so important," notes Industeel UK director Joseph Connor. "There will be a uniform
finish so that there will be no obvious signs at all that the thing is built in sections. It will be as if it
is a single piece of stainless."
Much of the surface was "shot-peened" (that is, subjected to a controlled stream of stainless steel shot),
so as to produce a dull finish that will reduce glare. "The shot-peened finish provides soft, diffuse
reflections of the light of Dublin's sky," says Anne Graham, project manager for the O'Connell Street
Integrated Area Plan. The bottom 12 metres of the spire will retain its mirrored finish but will be etched
with an abstract design to improve resistance to dirt and graffiti.
Stainless steel was chosen for its corrosion resistance, structural behaviour and visual/sculptural
qualities, adds Graham. The spire has been designed to last at least 130 years.
The new monument is not without controversy. Detractors claim the spire will be a hazard to aircraft, a
magnet for publicity- seeking climbers, and a poor fit for O'Connell Street's 1920s architecture. But
supporters insist it is destined to become a centrepiece as the city forges ahead with revitalization plans
for an area that fell on hard times in the 1960s. Ireland's prime minister, Bertie Ahern, says the addition
of a granite-paved plaza, a tree-lined boulevard, and cafes and kiosks has the potential to make O'Connell
Street one of the world's great thoroughfares.
Dean Jobb is a freelance writer and lectures in journalism at Kings College in Halifax, N.S.
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