Memory and loss and the turmoil of history

Memory and loss and the turmoil of history The rose garden at the National War Memorial in July
Shadows + Reflections: The Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Island Bridge,
by Annie Dibble and Angela Rolfe
(Gandon Editions, €25.00 / £22.00)

 

When my wife and I were small our respective fathers were only too happy to take their families down rural side roads to inspect a monument or two. However, the Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, though we passed them often enough, were never alluded to as something of interest.

This, I think, was true of many families, even in the Kilmainham area. But this was not true of everyone. The creators of this book are among those for whom the gardens, even when neglected, were a delight. Hence the origin of this book.

The photographs in this book are quite wonderful, catching the memorials structures and the gardens in many seasons and lights, often the same scene being imaged over different seasons, revealing constant change within the continuity.

The images are wonderfully alive and absorbing. All too many photo books have no text, but here the text is of the first importance. This is a book created entirely by women:  the pictures, the poems. the essays, and, above all, the memories of family, loss, war and reconciliation. The only piece from a male is the introduction by President Michael D. Higgins, but that too is a very fine piece of writing, as we might have expected.   

They give a full account of the genesis of the gardens, their design by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the actual laying out; but do not neglect the social and political difficulties that affected the site, and describe their slow rediscovery with the growing social maturity of Ireland about its chequered past. The gardens have now been fully restored, and are cared for diligently in an appropriate way.

The 50,000 Irish men and boys – many from Dublin it must be said – memorialised in these acres, have found at last a rightful place in the public imagination of the nation. The authors of this book have created a publication worthy of their great theme.