Mystery of the Missing Minerva! Turns out she now lives under the Anglesea Stand…
Image by National Library of Ireland on The Commons
This was the entrance arch to Leinster House (next door to Library Towers) back in the days when it was home to the Royal Dublin Society, whose original collections formed the basis of ours here at the National Library of Ireland. It looks quite imposing, and it’s lovely to see the notices for presumably forthcoming lectures, etc. – a bit blurry, but one definitely says BOTANY.
I had assumed the figure of Minerva had been relocated to the "new" RDS in Ballsbridge, but as she’s not obvious on any of the buildings there, we wondered, where is Minerva now?
Turns out (from our Man in Ballsbridge): "Minerva now lives under the Anglesea Stand of the Main Arena. She is painted white and now called Hibernia (renaming was due to tensions back in the day when we moved out to Ballsbridge … or so they say).
There is a stone relief of Minerva on the front of the Main Hall building (above the door) and there is a mosaic on the ground just inside the Main Hall door. That is probably why people think the statue is situated there."
Date: 1863-1880
NLI Ref: STP_1254
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
