The indignity of it all ...

This milestone has been around for over a hundred years. It's been witness to the changing face of Irish society, to the twists and turns of history. It stood proud and alone at the roadside as horse carriages passed along the Malahide Road carrying the high and mighty on their days out to the then countryside and on their way, parasols in hand, to the seaside. It witnessed the confusion of the local residents during the Easter Rising as sounds of the bombardment of the city centre drifted on the wind, the violence of the War of Independence and the Civil War, and the final shift to independence.

All of that it's stood through, and now it's consigned to being embedded in an ugly pebble-dashed wall, no longer standing proud and isolated. It wouldn't happen in a civilised European country, where such old-stagers would be treated with the respect they deserve, and where its fate certainly wouldn't have come about at the hands of officialdom as part of a road-widening scheme. No doubt the engineers actually thought they were engaging in an act of conservation ('After all, we could have just pulled it down.'), but I find it all desperately sad.