WAR MEMORIAL GARDENS ISLANDBRIDGE, DUBLIN

IrishTimes: WAR MEMORIAL GARDENS ISLANDBRIDGE, DUBLIN
Royal destinations: THE IRISH National War Memorial Gardens, to give the location its full, official title, is the memorial dedicated to the 49,400 Irishmen who died in the first World War.

The memorial, recognised as one of the most beautiful of its kind, has a chequered history replete with good intentions, followed by indifference and neglect, before, in recent years, finally being granted an official place in the nation's narrative.

The gardens were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the great English memorialist and one of Britain's foremost architects of the 20th century. His works include the vice-regal palace of New Delhi. As one of the three principal architects hired by the Imperial War Graves Commission, he designed numerous war memorials, the Cenotaph (meaning empty tomb) in Whitehall, London, being chief among them.

Lutyens's Irish creations include Heywood Gardens in Laois, extensions and alterations to Lambay Castle on Lambay Island, similar changes to Howth Castle and Stormont House in Belfast, designed as a home for the speaker of the Northern Ireland parliament. He was also commissioned to design the unbuilt Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.

His design for the Islandbridge memorial included a sunken, circular Garden of Remembrance with rose beds, overlooked by a pair of matching, square book rooms.

The garden encloses a so-called War Stone, a piece of granite symbolising an altar. The way to the garden is via Lime Avenue on which sits a small, dome-shaped open temple held aloft by six pillars.

The memorial was probably the last to be erected to the memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the first World War and is one of the finest, if not the best in the world, according to the British Legion Annual (Irish Free State Souvenir Edition 1925-1935).

The idea of a war memorial to commemorate all Irish men and women who died in the first World War originated at a meeting in 1919 at which a trust fund was established. It took until 1924 for an organising committee to be established which debated the merits of St Stephen's Green and Merrion Square as possible sites. Discussion continued until December 1930, when WT Cosgrave suggested the Islandbridge site, then known as the 60-acre Longmeadows Estates. Cosgrave recognised the importance of the memorial, whose supporters insisted it should be an all-Ireland monument. "A project so dear to a big section of the citizens should be a success," he said. His successor, Éamon de Valera,

was also supportive, approving grants and allowing construction to begin in 1932.

The memorial was built by unemployed ex-servicemen, half of them ex-British army soldiers, half ex-Irish Army men. To maximise the work, mechanical equipment was restricted and even granite blocks several tonnes in weight from Ballyknocken and Barnaculla were hauled into place.

Although finished in 1939, the second World War intervened and an official opening was postponed. From 1948 small private commemorations took place under the auspices of the Royal British Legion, the charity that provides help and welfare for ex-service members. The commemorations were abandoned in 1969, however, as the political climate deteriorated due to events in Northern Ireland.

A lack of maintenance staff and official neglect reduced the gardens to a state of disrepair and at times in the 1970s and 1980s, they became a halting site for Travellers. In the late 1980s a committee of trustees, supported by the British Legion, redoubled their efforts, restoring the gardens and hosting the long-postponed opening on September 10th, 1988. But no government representative attended.

The official "opening and dedication" took place on the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st, 2006. It was attended by President Mary McAleese - whose predecessor, Mary Robinson, had used her office to help change attitudes towards honouring the war dead - taoiseach Bertie Ahern, whose predecessor John Bruton attended an earlier commemoration in Islandbridge, and members of the Oireachtas. Also present was an Army guard of honour and the Army band.

The names of the 49,400 who died in the first World War are inscribed in two manuscripts, beautifully illustrated by the artist Harry Clarke. They are kept in the two book rooms which remain closed, because of the threat of vandalism, except by appointment with Dúchas.