Shelbourne Hotel receives ‘warning letter’ over removal of 153-year-old statues

© Sharonlflynn/Wikimedia Commons Statue of slave girl outside the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

There were four external statues at the entrance to the hotel on St Stephen’s green – two Nubian princesses and their slave girls, in shackles. The Shelbourne Hotel has received a ‘warning letter’ from the council over the removal of 153-year-old statues from the front of the property, it emerged yesterday.  The hotel faced a huge backlash after they removed the four bronze statues from outside the five-star hotel on July 27.  It is believed Black Lives Matter protests across the world led hotel bosses to decide the structures should be removed.

 

However, Dublin City Council pointed out In the letter, the artistic pieces are part of a protected structure and they alleged they were removed without planning permission.

The documents states that the owners could be criminally prosecuted and held to account.

The penalty for failing to comply with planning laws is a maximum fine of more than €12 million and two years in prison.

It is believed all four of the statues, half of which have been described as portraying ‘slave girls’, were taken down by American companies without any notice.

But art historians have argued since the row erupted that the statues do not depict slaves and are in fact two Nubian and two Egyptian royals.

Submissions can be made by the owners to the local authority within four weeks of them receiving the correspondence.

Fred in disgust says we have so little to concern ourselves with in these days of COVID-19.  The Irish Georgian Society are primed for action, as can be seen above.  Me, I dawdled for a walk in Upper and Lower Baggot Street on several occasions over the last week.  What is most disturbing are the homeless people who are definitely at the lowest rung of the societal ladder that operates in Ireland.  There is nowhere these people can wash or get a change of clothes.  They are lost in the wilderness of COVID-19.  Do you know that in the month of July as many as 10 (reported but unqualified figures) died on our streets, no doubt alone, probably starving and even cold, although it is summer. 

Fred says put the Statutes back in place; they are part of the affluence an history of the Shelbourne hotel.