Statue of Cú Chulainn at the GPO

The Statue of Cú Chulainn at the GPO is the object of Frank’s long-awaited pilgrimage in Dublin and a meeting point between Irish legend, the memory of the 1916 dead, and the family’s journey home. Its golden figure moves Frank to tears, while his father’s explanation links the hero’s final stand to the men commemorated at the General Post Office.

The detour to the GPO

During the family’s stay in Dublin, Frank’s father asks their driver to take them past the GPO so he can show his son the new statue. He explains that Frank admires Cú Chulainn. The request turns a journey through the city into a purposeful visit: the statue is not merely a monument to see, but the fulfilment of an admiration Frank has carried with him.

The driver initially knows nothing about Cú Chulainn, but agrees to stop. He recalls that the English nearly wrecked the GPO with guns fired from the River Liffey and points out the bullet holes in its front, which he believes should remain as a reminder of English perfidy. His account places the statue within a building marked by political violence, even as Frank’s father has a different emphasis: the legendary hero and the dead of Easter Week.

The encounter with the statue

Frank’s mother remains in the motor car while Frank follows the driver and his father into the GPO. The driver points out the statue, and Frank feels tears coming as he sees Cú Chulainn at last. The figure is golden, with long hair and bowed head, and a large bird perched on his shoulder. The scene gives physical form to the heroic figure Frank had admired from a distance.

The driver questions what the figure has to do with the men of 1916. In answer, Frank’s father recounts that Cú Chulainn fought to the end, as the men of Easter Week did. His enemies waited until they knew he was dead before approaching; when a bird landed on him and drank his blood, they understood that he had died. The statue’s bird thus becomes the sign that joins the legend’s ending to the commemoration of the modern dead.

Legend, commemoration, and departure

The driver responds that it is a sad day for the men of Ireland if a bird must tell them that a man is dead, then urges the party to leave before they miss the train to Limerick. His practical concern cuts across the solemn explanation: the visit has made the statue’s meaning plain to Frank, but the family’s journey continues on a schedule set by the train.

The episode connects Frank’s personal admiration for Cú Chulainn to his father’s account of Irish sacrifice, while setting both against the GPO’s visible history of attack. The monument gathers legend, nationalist remembrance, and the building’s bullet-marked past in one place; for Frank, it also marks the moment when the hero he has imagined becomes something he can see.