In London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, one of several buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren to replace those destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, there is the Inscription:- “Si Monumentum requiris, circumspice” meaning – “If you want his monument, look around”
In London’s Pudding Lane stands “The Monument,” also designed by Wren, to commemorate the fire at its point of origin, and on the orders of the City’s Court of Aldermen it had the following Inscription, following an account of the conflagration:-
“Sed Furor Papisticus qui tamdiu patravit nondum restingvitur” meaning “But Popish Frenzy which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched”
That inscription was still there when Wren died in 1723, 57 years after the fire, part of his monument.
The poet Alexander Pope, himself a Catholic wrote:-
“Where London’s Column, pointing to the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and Lies”
The lies were chiselled out in 1830 a full 164 years after the fire.
Monumental lying columnists still flourish in London and have their outliers in Ireland.
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