Bid to rename Millennium Spire in memory of Mandela rejected

Hopes of renaming Dublin’s Millennium Spire after Nelson Mandela have been dashed after councillors unanimously rejected the idea.

Dermot Lacey, chairman of the council’s commemorative naming committee, said the decision was not a reflection on South Africa’s first black president.

“We are coming into a decade of commemoration and, if we renamed the Spire, there would be pressure to rename half of Dublin in memory of different people,” the Labour councillor said. “We don’t think that would be a good thing.”