Now the British love their anniversaries, particularly those that hark back to the days when they and Old Admiral Nelson too-ra-loo la-ruled the waves.
And no sooner have we marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler than we’re celebrating seeing off Napoleon too.
Which came into sharp focus as I stood atop Calton Hill this weekend and noticed Edinburgh’s Nelson memorial is under rigging.
To be unveiled in July to fanfare we should imagine ahead of the 210th anniversary of his death.
It took double the time to defeat Boney than Hitler with two especially key dates in that struggle, Trafalgar 1805 and Waterloo 1815.
Pillar of the community
Why the Irish-born but Irish-loathing victor of Waterloo Duke of Wellington didn’t merit the biggest statue in London would have galled him.
But perhaps Nelson’s Hollywood exit in the arms of Captain Thomas Hardy and his final words ‘Kiss Me Hardy’ tipped it in his favour.
Less well-known will be that the first statue to Horatio wasn’t in London.
But in what was then the Second City of the Empire, Glasgow.
The Glaswegians didn’t hang around either putting up their 143ft erection in George Square just two years after Trafalgar.
Birmingham which was to replace Glasgow as the Second City of the Empire followed with their own statue in 1809.
Farewell Admiral Nelson
The same year Dubliners erected their own edifice which The Dubliners marked in their ballad Farewell Admiral Nelson.
For a hundred and fifty-seven years it stood up there in state
Toora loora loora loora loo!
To mark old Nelson’s victory o’er the French and Spanish fleet.
Toora loora loora loora loo!
But one-thirty in the morning,
Without a bit of warning,
Old Nelson took a powder and he blew!
Now at last the Irish nation
Has Parnell in higher station
Than poor old Admiral Nelson, toora loo!
Ragin’ Bajans
Now where the revolting Irish led the Bajans followed although without the Big Bang of which the Irish are so fond.
Instead they took Nelson down from his plinth in National Heroes Square in 2020.
And relocated him to the Barbados Historical Society.
Visitors to the now Republic of Barbados can pay pilgrimage now to more deserving figures.
Such as Fenty (Rihanna’s people) and the Murtys on The Builders of Barbados Wall in Golden Square Freedom Park.
Back in Dublin the Irish built their Millennium Spire where once Horatio stood.
Preferring to hail their own heroes.
While others remember when Old Admiral Nelson too-ra-loo-ruled the waves.