Come Here To Me!

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Dublin’s Millennium celebrations. The milk bottles remain, and so do the memories.

Among the most enduring images from 1988 are those of the giant Gulliver who was beached on Dollymount Strand, before floating on the River Liffey. An impressive “fibreglass, aluminium and plywood” tribute to the central character of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver was the work of Macnas, the much-loved Galway street performance company. It was a fitting tribute to one of Dublin’s finest writers, the great satirist Jonathan Swift, in a year that celebrated all things Dublin.

Gulliver on the Liffey (Image Credit: Dublin City Photographic Collection, Dublin City Council)

In January 1988, it was reported that the relatively new Macnas (they were founded two years earlier) intended to “travel to Dublin in March and liaise with different communities to capture volunteers all willing to help build the massive Gulliver model.” In keeping with the spirit of the year, they hoped that “the different parts of his body will be assembled at workshops throughout the city, with the help of 35 young craftspeople on a Fás scheme.”

The primary funding for Gulliver came from the National Lottery, who put an impressive £50,000 towards the project. The giant made his way onto the front of almost every daily newspaper in the country when he finally arrived on Dollymount Strand in July, with journalists getting into the spirit of things. The Evening Herald reported that “chaos broke out on Dollymount Strand this afternoon when a giant was spotted floating in the sea off the north Dublin beach…Experts called to the scene finally revealed that the huge man was in fact Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, direct from Dean Swift’s masterpiece story.”

Evening Herald, 12 July 1988.

This RTÉ report likewise played along, asking the children of Dublin where they felt the giant had come from. One child believed ‘Heaven’ to be the answer, and all were transfixed by the model and the pageantry that surrounded it. The captured Gulliver was freed and given a civic reception by Lord Mayor Ben Briscoe, before being placed in the Liffey between the Ha’penny Bridge and O’Connell Bridge, drawing huge crowds of the bemused and curious for a look.

The episode is recalled in recent literature, thanks to Frankie Gaffney’s novel Dublin Seven:

It only seems like yesterday ye were born, said his ma, getting misty-eyes. 1988…Dublin was a kip back then.But the week you were born, they’d big celebrations on for Dublin’s Millennium. They made these…special 50p pieces, cause Dublin was a thousand years old or somethin’, and when we were bringing ye back from the Rotunda they had a big huge giant floatin in the Liffey! Something to do with yer man Gullible’s travels it was!

Fittingly, Macnas also displayed Gulliver in their home city, where he drew big crowds on Grattan Beach. It was one of the first acts by a street performance company who have been captivating audiences ever since.

Gulliver in Galway (Image Credit: Macnas)

See the forthcoming Dublin Inquirer for an article examining the Millennium in more detail.