Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Wax Museum

Detail of Black Church photo with Fionn

I live just up the street and around the corner from the Black Church and came across Fionn on my way home on 19 June 2005. I asked him what brought him to Dublin, and he said he wanted to see how the Guinness ad turned out. It shows him batting back some of the rocks thrown at him by the Scottish giant Bennandonner. Those that he missed form the Giant’s Causeway on the north coast of County Antrim. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Fionn’s Guinness ad. Click to enlarge. (photo taken from the opposite direction from the previous)

While he was in the neighbourhood, he decided to look into the National Wax Museum to see if he was represented there. The entrance was too small, so he climbed up the front of the building and started to pull off pieces of the wall.

Fionn opens the Wax Museum

I asked him what he doing, and he said, “They’re discriminating against full-sizers like me, so let’s just call this the official real opening of the Wax Museum. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do about it.”

I had no idea what I could do about it and thought it best not to ask, so I continued on my way up the street, and when I got past the Black Church I turned around and took the picture you see at the top of this post.

Fionn’s liberation of the Wax Museum for full-sizers didn’t do the building any good. In fact, shortly after the incident it was torn down, and a link in the Maldron Hotel chain was built on the site. Here’s a picture of the hotel to prove the veracity of this story.

Maldron Hotel, Granby Row, background right