Learn More

The Landscape Designer

Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), the distinguished British architect and landscape designer, was commissioned to prepare the design. Lutyens was no stranger to Ireland having previously worked on Lambay Island, Co. Dublin, for Lord Revelstoke, at Howth Castle for T.J. Gainsford-St Lawrence, and at Heywood, Co. Laois, for Colonel and Mrs Hutcheson Poë. Heywood is now managed by the Office of Public Works. The gardens as a whole are a lesson in classical symmetry and formality and it is generally acknowledged that his concept for the Islandbridge site is outstanding among the many war memorials he created throughout the world. His love of local material and the contrasting moods of the various ’compartments’ of the gardens, all testify to his artistic genius.

The Central Lawn

The central ‘compartment’ consists of a lawn enclosed by a high dry limestone wall with granite piers. In the centre is the ‘War Stone’ of Irish granite, symbolising an altar, which weighs seven and a half tons. The dimensions of this are identical to War Stones in First World War memorials found throughout the world. The War Stone is flanked on either side by broad fountain basins, with obelisks or ‘needles’ in their centres symbolising candles.

On rising ground south of the War Stone, at the head of a semi-circular flight of granite steps, stands the Great Cross with its truncated arms. This is aligned with the War Stone and central avenue. On the cope of the wall at the cross is inscribed the words “To the memory of the 49,400 Irishmen who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-18”. The original main entrance to the gardens was to be have been from the south where the bridge over the railway line was designed to carry elaborate colonnades of chiselled granite, but this was never completed.

At either end of the lawn are two pairs of Bookrooms in granite, representing the four provinces of Ireland. These contain the Books of Remembrance in which are inscribed the names of the 49,400 Irish soldiers, who died in the First World War. These books contain illustrations by the celebrated Harry Clarke. One of the bookrooms now houses the Ginchy Cross, a wooden cross of celtic design, some 13ft (4m) high which was erected in 1917 as a memorial to the 4,354 men of the 16th Irish Division who died in the two engagements at Guillemont and Ginchy during the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Later replaced by a stone cross, the original cross was brought back to Ireland in 1926.

The North Terrace

Eight holly trees originally stood as ‘generals’ on the North Terrace overlooking serried ranks of flowering cherries or ‘foot soldiers’. The formality of the lines of Prunus ‘Ukon’, ‘Hisakura’ and ’Watereri’ contrasts boldly with the informality of the parkland trees beyond, which were chosen to give variety and colour, seasonal interest and contrasting form. It is worth noting the landscape impact created by sixty-year-old Atlantic cedars, purple beeches, evergreen oaks, silver birches, whitebeams and scarlet hawthorns at Islandbridge.

The Avenues

A series of tree-lined roads and paths radiate from the central dome-shaped temple. In Lutyen’s original design, each of these was to have focused on a particular landscape feature.

The formality of these paths and roads is reinforced by the judicious choice of trees to give a series of avenues of contrasting form, colour and height. The outer Horseshoe Road was planted with a single line of silver limes. Two diagonal avenues were planted with golden poplars. Magnificent elms once adorned both the central avenue and the two short avenues which join the sunken rose gardens with the diagonal avenues. Unfortunately, these succumbed to Dutch elm disease in the early 1980s. These have now been replaced with lime trees. The lower avenue, which runs at right angles to the central avenue, was planted on each side with Norway and silver maples.

Sixty years of storms have, however, taken their toll on the splendour of these avenues and have been especially hard on the golden poplars and, to a lesser extent, the silver maples. The two avenues of golden poplar were replanted in early 1998.

Genealogy

Trace your military ancestors with the help of these resources.

• Ireland’s Memorial Records
• Irish Genealogy
• Genealogical Society of Ireland, especially this invaluable guide (PDF)
• The 1901 and 1911 Census Online
• Griffith’s Valuation Records
• Family Search (contains Irish civil records index)
• Roots Ireland
• Ancestry, especially their WW1 search
• The Irish Military Archives
• Irish Casualties of World War One on Ancestry