I stumbled across this advertisement in the newspaper archives for the unveiling of the millennium countdown clock in the River Liffey. 10,000 people had turned up to see the clock turned on for the first time in March 1996. The project, funded by the National Lottery, was a total failure to put it lightly. The clock was plagued by the issue of visibility in the River Liffey, and in the end the National Lottery chairman John Hynes told The Irish Times that “the Liffey beat us”.
The idea of placing a clock in the River Liffey was first put forward in 1994, when the National Lottery appealed to the public for entrants to its ‘Countdown 2000’ competition. The winning clock design was proposed by Gráinne Hassett and Vincent Ducatez, two architects living in Dublin. For their proposal, they received a £10,000 reward.
In a 1994 newspaper report on the clock for The Irish Times, it was noted that:
Surrounding the clock, which will start ticking at midnight next New Years Eve, will be ‘reeds’ of metallic-coloured carbon fibre, fixed on buoys from which loudspeakers will send out, at 30 second intervals, recorded sounds of Dublin life- the clank of Guinness barrels on pavements, foghorns, seagulls cries and the calls of Moore Street traders.
Video footage of the unveiling of the clock features in the 1996 episode of Reeling In The Years, at the very beginning of the show. Gay Byrne, Joe Duffy and Ruairí Quinn were on hand for the event. A massive fireworks display marked the event.
Three days after the clock was placed in the River Liffey, it vanished from its location. One Dubliner was reported in the media as joking “I’ve heard of moving statues, but this is ridiculous.” When approached by the media, the National Lottery at first insisted it didn’t know where its own clock was, before telling the media a day later that it had been removed for the purpose of facilitating boat races. Bizarrely, The Irish Times reported that there had been a rumour magician Paul Daniels had “mad it disappear” while in Dublin!
To compliment the clock in the river, the National Lottery placed a postcard booth on O’Connell Bridge, where Dubliners could purchase a postcard for 20p bearing the exact amount of time left at that moment until the new millennium. Images of the postcard were uploaded to our Come Here To Me Facebook page by Lois McGrath after we issued an appeal to see one.
The postcard booth seemed to be just about the only thing which worked however, as over the short lifespan of the clock itself it stopped on a number of occasions, and when restarting would display an incorrect countdown. By December 1996, it was evident the problems with the clock could not be fixed at any reasonable, and the six ton clock was removed to a warehouse, with over £250,000 of National Lottery money wasted.
Interestingly, the much loved Father Pat Noise plaque on O’Connell Bridge today, which commemorates a fictional priest who supposedly died “when his carriage plunged into the Liffey on August 10th 1919” is placed in the spot left by the removal of the Millenium Clock’s booth on O’Connell Bridge.
Fr Pat Noise?? As Gay Byrne would say; who dat? Please tell all. I’m burstin’ to know more.
Wait a minute. It weighed six tons? SIX?! And it disappeared over night.
“who supposedly died”. What a scandalous comment! In memory of all “fictional characters” I demand to know the facts – and only the facts. This isn’t music, it’s NOISE.
With regard to the postcards, where could one be gained and how much?
“Millennium” is misspelled 4 times on this page.