Frank McNally tells the story of a young Dubliner who visited the British Museum in 1845 and committed an act of vandalism. The episode centres on a broken vase and the sort of lasting disgrace that might have followed such behaviour. At the time, the offender’s actions seemed certain to make him notorious. Yet the man has not become a household name, leaving the incident lodged in the museum’s history rather than public memory. McNally’s account draws attention to the strange afterlife of a small act of damage. The story also carries modern resonance because it asks where accident ends and culpability begins, and how reputation can outlast the person involved.