Irish Lawmaker Has Unusual Idea for a Statue

In Cork, an Irish politician wants to put a bloodsucker on a pedestal—literally. Green Party councillor Oliver Moran is pushing for what he says would be the tiniest public monument on Earth: a statue to the mosquito that local lore says bit Oliver Cromwell and delivered the malaria that killed him, reports the Irish Examiner. Moran suggests the insect of legend be memorialized on a statue outside City Hall.

Cromwell is a divisive figure even in his native England, and he is widely reviled in Ireland because of his brutal 17th-century campaign to bring the country under the control of Britain. Moran acknowledges that the science is shaky behind his idea—Cromwell probably died of malaria, but even if he did, nobody can prove a Cork mosquito is responsible. Sill, Moran tells the CBC radio program As It Happens that the legend matters for what it symbolizes: "It tells a story of the downfall of tyrants and about how the mighty can be taken down by something tiny—and that relationship between the powerful and the meek."