PICK OF TODAY’S TV

SCANNAL – FLOOZIE IN THE JACUZZI, 7PM, RTÉ ONE

THIS week’s episode looks back at the Anna Livia Fountain, which was privately gifted to Dublin for the 1988 millennium but wasn’t overly popular with the public during its 14 years on O’Connell Street. Named after a character in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, the Anna Livia (right) was designed to embody a personification of the Liffey, featuring a female figure reclining in flowing water. But the structure caused plenty of debate about the role of public art and no little consternation. It adorned the central mall of Dublin’s O’Connell Street from 1988 until 2001, and for those tumultuous years it remained deeply divisive to the people of Dublin and the Irish public at large. Management of the site became costly and troublesome for the Dublin Corporation, and the Anna Livia was removed to make way for yet another controversial piece of public art, the Spire of Dublin.