Memorials
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After the horror of the 11 Sepember it might be interesting to discuss the purpose and design of memorials. At their best memorials express our feels about a tragedy and our aspiration not to forget the victims while consecrating a public space to their memory or creating a public space suitable for contemplation and memory. Rededicating the spike certainly wouldn’t acheive any of this, it is a hard thing to do. The best memorials I have seen are the Vietnam memorial in Washington, the Menin gate in Ypres, the huge tower of concrete and tanks in Beruit and the doves added to the WW1 memorial in Enniskillen. The worst might be the Croppy Acre. Dublin is filled with memorials, the gate to Stephen’s green is a Beor war memorial, the Islandbridge memorial and the Garden of Remberence are two of our nicest parks, there is an excellant Famine memorial on the Quays and an interesting memorial by Tara station commerating someone who died trying to help someone else out of a sewer. There are lots more.
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I think the best memorials are of the Victorian age or Nineteenth century when figurative sculpture was the fashion and memorials were erected to almost anything and anyone.Modern day memorials lack something. Compare the Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge dedicated to the victims of the Great War to the more contemporary Garden of Remberance at Parnell Square (Sculpture by Oisin Kelly) or the above mentioned Croppy Acre memorial which is a real hotch potch lacking symmetry etc… Memorials today tend to be more abstract and lack figurative sculpture with the exceptions of the evocative gaunt figurative sculpture dedicated to the famine victims at Dublin docks or Behan’s famine ship in the west. Figurative sculpture today in memorials is unfashionable I suppose ….(evoking Hollywood).
I think too that sculptors today tend to lack the great craftsmanship that was found in the Nineteenth Century….see the bad proportions of the figurines of Reinhardt who also is responsible for the Molly Malone statue. I think to rebuild the World Trade Centre (does’nt have to be an exact facimile) incorporating a wall with design motifs and all the names and photographs of those who lost their lives would be a good tribute. A park on this site would be a no no.[This message has been edited by GregF (edited 01 October 2001).]
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