Island of Ireland Peace Park - The Park

The Park

  • Inside the entrance gate on the left are four granite pillars with plaques in four languages,

Irish, English, Flemish and French, commemorating the dedication and opening and dedication of the park on 11 November 1998.

  • The park surrounding the round tower contains thirteen smaller stone structures:
  • There are three pillars giving the killed, wounded and missing of each division
*36th (Ulster) Division – 32,186
*10th (Irish) Division – 9,363
*16th (Irish) Division – 28,398
  • An upright tablet listing the counties of Ireland, the names flowing together to suggest the unity of death
  • A bronze tablet depicting a plan of the battle area
  • Nine stone tablets with prose, poems and letters from Irish servicemen
“ Spent all night trying to console, aid and remove the wounded. It was ghastly to see them lying there in the cold, cheerless outhouses, on bare stretchers with no blankets to cover their freezing limbs. ”

—Chaplain Francis Gleeson, Royal Munster Fusiliers
“ As it was, the Ypres battleground just represented one gigantic slough of despond into which floundered battalions, brigades and divisions of infantry without end to be shot to pieces or drowned, until at last and with immeasurable slaughter we had gained a few miles of liquid mud. ”

—Charles Miller, 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
“ So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, and tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor, know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emperor, but for a dream born in a herdsman’s shed, and for the sacred scripture of the poor. ”

—Tom Kettle, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers
“ In a matter of seconds, a hissing and shrieking pandemonium broke loose. The sky was splashed with light. Rockets, green, yellow and red, darted in all directions; and simultaneously, a cyclone of bursting shells enveloped us. ”

—JFB O’Sullivan, 6th Connaught Rangers
“ It is too late now to retrieve a fallen dream, too late to grieve a name unmade, but not too late to thank the Gods for what is great. A keen edged sword, a soldier’s heart is greater than a poet’s art. And greater than a poet’s fame a little grave that has no name. ”

—Francis Ledwidge, 5th Inniskilling Fusiliers
“ I wish the sea were not so wide that parts me from my love, I wish that things men do below were known to God above. I wish that I were back again in the Glens of Donegal; they’ll call me coward if I return, but a hero if I fall. ”

—Patrick MacGill, London Irish Rifles
“ Hostilities will cease at 11.00am on the 11th day of the 11th month. After that time all firing will cease. This was joyous news. Approaching eleven o'clock in our sector you could have heard a pin drop. When eleven o'clock came there were loud cheers. The war was over as far as we were concerned. ”

—Terence Poulter, 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers
“ So the curtain fell, over that tortured country of unmarked graves and unburied fragments of men: Murder and massacre: The innocent slaughtered for the guilty: The poor man for the sake of the rich: The man of no authority made the victim of the man who had gathered importance and wished to keep it. ”

—David Starret, 9th Royal Irish Rifles
“ I mean the simple soldier man, who when the Great War first began, just died, stone dead from lumps of lead, in mire. ”

—William Orpen, Official War Artist

  • Chaplain Francis Gleeson's letter home from the front. Chaplain Gleeson served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers.

  • Charles Miller's letter home from the front. Charles Miller served in the 2nd Inniskilling Fusiliers.

  • Terence Poulter's letter home from the front. Terence Poulter served in the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

  • David Starret's letter home from the front. David Starret served in the 9th Royal Irish Rifles.

Read more about this topic:  Island Of Ireland Peace Park

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