Rainer -

Things explode when one detonates them. In this case, the IRA tripped the detonator which triggered the primary explosive which in turn opened that end of O'Connell Street very nicely, indeed. Or to put it more directly, the IRA blew it to kingdom come - a symbolic gesture linking themselves to the 1916 rising.

According to legend, IRA volunteers piled a stack of home made explosives, grenades, etc., at the base of Nelson's Pillar to blow it up. In reality, based on witnesses and survivors of the GPO, a question was raised on the effectiveness of their homemade grenades when one of them detonated in the GPO and did NOT kill the fellow holding it - just gave him some fairly serious powder burns.

In a flash of inspiration, ut was agreed that they could test the true usefullness of the weapons by piling a stack of them at the bottom of the pillar. If they went off effectively, the whole thing should have come tumbling down. They went off, it stayed up, so the inheritors of "the cause" finished the job for them some 50 years on.

Back to work -

Pete