FOUR STATUES which were removed from their plinths outside a Dublin hotel earlier this year have been reinstated.
Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel, near St Stephen's Green in the city centre, earlier this year took the decision to remove the statues of four girls which had stood outside the hotel since the 1800's, fearing they depicted slaves as two wore chains around their feet.
The decision came at a time when the world had erupted in global protests about the treatment of black people and Police brutality following the murder of George Floyd, and the owners of the Shelbourne removed the statues quietly overnight.
However, following a report on the statues by leading Irish sculpture expert Paula Murphy, it was found that the statues of the women holding torches were not slaves, but rather two Nubian princesses and two Egyptian princesses, according to RTÉ News.
The statues were mistakenly thought to depict slave girls, as two of the statues holding torches bore shackles on their feet (Shelbourne Hotel )The statues have now been removed after undergoing professional restoration work, as recommended by Paula Murphy in her report.
Frank McDonald, former environment editor with The Irish Times, told RTÉ the statues should not have been removed, and the entire ordeal was "an attempt to import American cancel culture into Ireland, that the American owners and operations decided to get rid of them because two of them might have been slave girls".
The statues were installed outside the Shelbourne after being created by French artist Mathurin Moreau in 1867.
The statues have now stood outside the hotel for 153 years.
