The Sunday Times

With his arms thrust skywards and his outsized imploring shovels of hands outstretched, Big Jim Larkin's bronze statue on Dublin's O'Connell Street is the thoroughfare's most imposing persona. If this May Day he seems even more prominent, it is because the trees which once mollified the potency of Oisin Kelly's dramatic cast, have recently been removed - the task undertaken to clear some space for a millennium monument which has so far not materialised. BJ's bronze was first unveiled opposite the GPO by the then president, Paddy Hillery, in June 1979. It was paid for by the state and by the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland.