THE IRISH NATIONAL MEMORIAL GARDENS AT ISLANDBRIDGE
Islandbridge is unique: it remains the largest monument to military service of any description on the island of Ireland. I walked there on Sunday and was exhausted, because of the heat, but there is an excellent bus service if you know what stops to use – there are four bus stops on Con Colbert Road [two in each directions] at there is a bus every few minutes.
The Irish National War Memorial Gardens is an Irish war memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin, dedicated “to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914–1918”, out of over 300,000 Irishmen who served in all armies.
Designed by the great memorialist Sir Edwin Lutyens who had already landscaped designed several sites in Ireland and around Europe, it is outstanding among the many war memorials he created throughout the world. He found it a glorious site.
The sunken Garden of Remembrance surrounds a Stone of Remembrance of Irish granite symbolising an altar, which weighs seven and a half tons. The dimensions of this are identical to First World War memorials found throughout the world, and is aligned with the Great Cross and central avenue.
Opposite to the Phoenix Park obelisk, it lies about three kilometres from the centre of Dublin, on grounds which gradually slope upwards towards Kilmainham Hill. Old chronicles describe Kilmainham Hill as the camping place of Brian Boru and his army prior to the last decisive Battle of Clontarf on 23 April 1014. The memorial was amongst the last to be erected to the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in World War I (Canada’s National War Memorial was opened in 1939), and is “the symbol of Remembrance in memory of a Nation’s sacrifice”.
The elaborate layout includes a central sunken rose garden composed by a committee of eminent horticulturalists, various terraces, pergolas, lawns and avenues lined with impressive parkland trees, and two pairs of bookrooms in granite, representing the four provinces of Ireland, and containing illuminated volumes recording the names of all the dead.
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