Gandon Editions
SHADOWS + REFLECTIONS – The Irish National War Memorial Gardens
SHADOWS + REFLECTIONS – The Irish National War Memorial Gardens
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ed. Annie Dibble and Angela Rolfe
ISBN 978 1910140 321 144pp (hb) 23x25cm 94 illus
Shadows + Reflections was first prompted by Annie Dibble’s images of the Irish National War Memorial Gardens. Annie has been photographing the Memorial Gardens for over twelve years, noting the seasonal changes in light and landscape with an artist’s eye. Collaborating with Angela Rolfe, that loose informal project has materialised into this book.
The written contributions in Shadows + Reflections are companion pieces to the photographic narrative. The idea to build a book around Annie's images arose from conversations with people who share her interest in the place, among them poets, historians, folklorists, architects and artists who feel a connection to the Gardens. All of the contributors are female – a deliberate decision. The absence of female voices in the history and making of the Irish War Memorial Gardens was notable, even though women were involved in the war and from the beginning were engaged in the plans to build a memorial. These Gardens are a testament to the deeply scarring trauma of war at the same time as they mark our capacity for forgiveness, reconciliation, poetry and love.
EXTRACTS
"The idea for this book arose from conversations with women who share my abiding love of the Irish National War Memorial Gardens. It is our local park, a magical, inspirational place. Years ago, in my early wonderings, it was not unusual to have it entirely to myself. In 2008 I began to bring my camera with me, and over time the captured images quietly developed a narrative of their own. I started to keep a weather eye and, on occasion, would awake at dawn, a gap in the perimeter fence giving early morning access before the south gate was opened: it was important to see and hear how the Gardens responded to daybreak when I was the only curious visitor. Locally known as the Memorial Park, these Gardens are remarkable, conceived and created by a Memorial Committee who came together in 1919 out of a need to honour the young Irish men killed fighting in the First World War. Andrew J Jameson, chairman of Jameson’s Whiskey Distillers and Memorial Committee Treasurer, engaged Edwin Lutyens as designer – an inspired choice. Lutyens was a visionary, and the Gardens are now considered to be one of the most outstanding war memorials in Europe."
"The Irish National War Memorial was the last memorial designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. It represents a synthesis and apogee of Lutyens’ lifetime’s work, incorporating elements of Lutyens’ poetic vision, rooted in the Arts and Crafts Movement and exhibited in the use of local materials, quality craftsmanship and beautiful planting. The layout and built structures are inspired by a logical classicism which he had employed in large country houses and public buildings, expressed in the formality of symmetry of the layout of New Delhi, and the empathy and humanism in the careful dignity of cemeteries which demonstrated his response to the chaos and suffering he had witnessed when he visited the Western Front in 1917."
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CONTENTS Foreword Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland |
