Irish embassy threatened over gift of Queen Victoria statue to Sydney, papers reveal

Ireland’s Australian embassy got “threatening and abusive phone calls” over the government’s gift of a statue of Queen Victoria to the city of Sydney, Irish cabinet papers declassified after 30 years have revealed.

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The statue, which had been in storage in Ireland for almost 40 years, was sent despite opposition from Ireland’s then finance minister, John Bruton, and the director of the National Museum of Ireland, John Teahan. It has stood outside Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building ever since.

Ireland’s Australian embassy wrote to the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs on 23 December 1987 with a report on the unveiling on 20 December, the Irish Times reported. Dermot Brangan, first secretary at the embassy, said he has spoken at the ceremony and Australian officials were very grateful for the statue, but the gift had not gone down well in some quarters.

“In the days preceding the unveiling, you should be aware that the embassy received a number of threatening and abusive phone calls about the propriety of an Irish government giving a statue of Victoria as a gift. The callers demanded to know the name of who was going to represent the Irish government at the ceremony and to warn him/her to stay away,” Brangan said.

He said a call had also been made to the Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper “from someone claiming to represent the Irish Defence Force – a group unknown to the embassy or indeed the police, warning the people of Sydney to stay away from the unveiling ceremony, threatening to bomb the statue and to picket the ceremony”.

“The caller is also reported to have issued a threat against the unnamed Irish government representative.”

The embassy was also warned of threats by police special branch officers, whose members escorted Brangan during his stay in Sydney for the unveiling.

The statue of Queen Victoria was originally unveiled at Dublin’s Leinster House in 1908.

After Irish independence from the UK in 1922, Leinster House became the home of Ireland’s parliament, the Dáil, and the statue stayed there until 1948 when it was moved to storage after decades of protests.

In June 1986, Ireland’s ambassador to Australia, Joseph Small, received a request from the office of the lord mayor of Sydney, Doug Sutherland, asking if it would be possible to send Queen Victoria to Australia on loan.

Despite the objections, the cabinet agreed to send the statue to Australia “on loan until recalled” and it arrived in 1987.

Brangan’s cable to Dublin reported the weather in Sydney at the unveiling was “most inclement with very heavy rain falling”.