There's now a petition to have a statue made of Chief O'Brien from 'Star Trek' in Dublin

A petition to have Chief O'Brien immortalised in a statue is gaining traction online.

You might think that having a statue of Chief O'Brien is some kind of gas craic, or something that simply wouldn't be done.

After all, he's a fictional character. They don't make statues for fictional characters, right? Wrong. There's a giant statue of Robocop from Paul Verhoeven's 1987 action classic in Detroit, the very city where the movie is set. The statue gained international attention when a campaign was launched to fund its construction, with work finally being completed in 2018.

How about the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia, right next to the famous 'Rocky Steps' leading up to the Philadelphia Art Museum? It's one of the city's most popular tourist destinations.

Not enough for you? There's Paddington Bear in London's Paddington Station, and a Sherlock Holmes statue on Baker Street. A statue of Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine was converted to Darth Vader from 'Star Wars' as a commentary of the abuses of totalitarianism. There was even a statue of Superman in a small town in Illinois called - you guessed it - Metropolis.

So with all these examples, why not have a statue of Chief Miles O'Brien from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' somewhere in Dublin at this petition suggests? After all, both shows were critically lauded, had an international audience, and he is - in our opinion, anyway - the most positive representation of Irishness in popular culture.

By right, however, the statue should actually be placed in Killarney as that's where the fictional character is supposedly from. Either way, the petition now has 257 signatures of writing. You can add your name to the list by following the link here.