Talk:Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney

A fact from Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 August 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Queen Victoria was abandoned at a children's reformatory, called "the auld bitch" by James Joyce, and now lives in Sydney?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/August. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney.

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Proposed return to Ireland section

A new section has been added by a Dublin-based IP address - suggesting that the Irish office of public works has proposed to return the statue to Ireland. However, the citation given ([1]) makes no mention of this, and the only references I can find in Google refer to this Wikipedia article, nothing else.([2] and [3]). Unless there's some solid sourcing for this I think the whole section should be removed. Moreover, unless the proposal (if real) comes to anything more than a vague suggestion, I think it needn't receive a whole subsection but merely be mentioned (and referenced) in a passing sentence.

Ping @Smirkybec:, you might be able to shed light on this. Witty lama 14:00, 17 April 2016 (UTC) -[reply]

Considering that all I can find for this in a Google search is a 4chan thread and a Facebook campaign page (with a couple of posts that just cite the Wikipedia article) started the same day that it was added to Wikipedia, I think it's pretty safe to chalk this one up to an obscure attempt at a hoax. The Drover's Wife (talk) 14:18, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a hoax to me, or perhaps a conflation with the similar statue that was dug up in Cork a few years ago. Sounds like "West Brit" hoaxing/bating to me.Smirkybec (talk) 17:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]