The intersection of two quiet residential streets is made a roundabout by the anointed one pointing to his sacred heart. Lost tourists looking for Guinness use him as a landmark. As did John Newton, in a sense.

I use him late at night as I explain to a taxi driver where I live: “Do you know the statue off Meath Street?” Invariably he does. His grandmother lives around there. Do I not find it a bit rough?

Once a year the local parish holds mass at this altar-in-traffic for the local children. A tinny ghetto blaster replaces St Catherine’s organ.

At the moment of the New Year – at midnight – the local families hold hands in a circle around himself and sing an inexact Auld Lang Syne and hug one another and a few tired children drum on saucepans with wooden spoons.