8 October 1899: The foundation stone of a monument to Charles Stewart Parnell was laid in Upper Sackville (O'Connell) Street, Dublin, on this day. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daniel Tallon, marched at the head of a procession which that year replaced the usual demonstration at the grave of Charles Stewart Parnell in Glasnevin Cemetery, and subsequently laid the foundation stone of the Parnell Statue at the head of Sackville Street. It was completed in 1911.

When finished to monument was inscribed with a excerpt from one of Parnell’s most famous speeches: No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country: ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no further’; and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, and we never shall.

Parnell had led the Irish Parliamentry Party to some of its greatest triumphs and to some of its greatest defeats. A man with a commanding presence he put the question of Ireland at the heart of British Politics. He was brought down as a result of his liason with another man’s wife - Kitty O’Shea. He died in 1891 and his stature with the Irish rose again with his internment in Glasnevin Cemetary in Dublin. The monument was erected to honour his name - it still stands today.