The Spire, Dublin’s iconic landmark on O’Connell Street, will this weekend, require additional maintenance works to it owing to a problem which has developed with the rope and pulley mechanism on which the lights in the Spire are mounted. This problem has meant that the Spire has had no lights for the past few months. Weather permitting, it is proposed to erect a crane in the median on Saturday 19th July, with the dual purpose of carrying out maintenance works on the rope and pulley and the lights. It is also intended to use the opportunity of the crane being on site to give the structure a further clean even though one was not scheduled until next year. On Monday the bottom 2 metres of the Spire will be treated and repolished as acid based graffiti has been applied at a number of locations and needs to be removed. There are also a number of deep scratches which will be removed also.

Central Area Manager, Charlie Lowe says, “There is a planned maintenance programme for the Spire and it was decided that, rather than hiring a 120 metre crane just to work on the lighting and rope and pulley maintenance, cleaning work would be conducted at the same time. This is scheduled to take place over the coming weekend, it’s a two-day job and it is subject to weather conditions being suitable. The crane is the highest and only one of its type in Ireland, so therefore, it cannot operate in high winds. If conditions are suitable the work will be done this Saturday and Sunday, or may need to be put off for another weekend”. The additional repolishing works will be done after the cleaning and maintenance work.

Traffic restrictions will apply in the vicinity of O’Connell Street during the works and the appropriate agencies have been consulted with and notified.