It has taken me many years to establish the story behind this memorial which has 1881-1961 on the base instead of 1881-1962.
Such was his reputation for curing speech impediments that the BBC producer Hywel Davis made a half-hour documentary based on his life entitled ‘It happened to me’, broadcast in June 1961. As a result, O’Flynn received hundreds of letters from all over Ireland and abroad from people seeking his advice and assistance. The programme won second prize at the international conference of catholic television at Monte Carlo in March 1962.
O’Flynn, James Christopher (1881–1962), priest and Irish language activist, was born 12 December 1881 in Mallow Lane, Cork, son of Cornelius O’Flynn who was employed in the butter market and his wife, Catherine Uppington, who was of protestant stock. O’Flynn was from a musical background and had a good singing voice. He received his earliest education in the national school in Blackpool, Co. Cork and afterwards in the North Monastery CBS. After two years as a clerk in a warehouse he decided to enter the priesthood. From 1899 to 1902 he studied in St Finbar’s Seminary, Farranferris. Subsequently he entered St Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he was ordained on 20 June 1909. While a student there he was a member of Cuallacht Cholm Cille and developed an interest in Shakespeare and elocution under the guidance of Professor Mac Cardie Flint. He was appointed to Farranferris to teach elocution in 1909 and spent fifty years teaching there on a weekly basis. The following year he was appointed chaplain to the asylum for the mentally ill in Cork until becoming curate at north cathedral, Cork in 1920. He was appointed parish priest of Passage West, Co. Cork in 1946 and remained there until his death.
IS A SMALL POCKET PARK ACROSS THE STREET FROM CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL
The Peace Park is a small public park located across from Christchurch Cathedral on the corner of Nicholas Street and Christchurch Place in the Liberties area of Dublin city centre. It was dedicated to Ireland’s desire for peace in 1988 during the Troubles.
The park was designed as a sunken garden, with an aim towards reducing the traffic noise from the busy junction at which it exists. The main features of the park include a bronze “Tree of Life” sculpture by artist Leo Higgins, a pool/fountain, and extracts from poems by W.B.Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh embedded in the stone walls and footpaths throughout the park.
The park was closed to the public in 2009/2010 due to loitering and antisocial behaviour, and remained shut for nearly 10 years. However, it was reopened in June 2019 after a refurbishment project and the addition of a Flanders Fields memorial. The newly designed garden is now fully accessible, and includes a ramped access.
The Peace Park is a beautiful and peaceful space in the heart of Dublin city centre. It is a great place to relax, reflect, or simply enjoy the outdoors.
Here are some additional facts about the Peace Park:
The park is 0.1 hectares in size. The Tree of Life sculpture is made of bronze and is 3.5 meters tall. The pool/fountain in the park is fed by rainwater. The extracts from poems in the park are by W.B.Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, and Seamus Heaney. The Flanders Fields memorial incorporates soil from Flanders, Belgium, as a memorial to the Irishmen who died and were injured in the First World War. The Peace Park is open from 10:00am to 6:00pm daily.
Thomas Michael Kettle (9 February 1880 – 9 September 1916) was an Irish economist, journalist, barrister, writer, war poet, soldier and Home Rule politician. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Tyrone from 1906 to 1910 at Westminster. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, then on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 enlisted for service in the British Army, with which he was killed in action on the Western Front in the Autumn of 1916. He was a much admired old comrade of James Joyce, who considered him to be his best friend in Ireland, as well as the likes of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Oliver St. John Gogarty and Robert Wilson Lynd.
He was one of the leading figures of the generation who at the turn of the twentieth century gave new intellectual life to Irish party politics, and to the constitutional movement towards All-Ireland Home Rule. A gifted speaker with an incisive mind and devastating wit, his death was regarded as a great loss to Ireland’s political and intellectual life.
As G. K. Chesterton surmised, “Thomas Michael Kettle was perhaps the greatest example of that greatness of spirit which was so ill rewarded on both sides of the channel […] He was a wit, a scholar, an orator, a man ambitious in all the arts of peace; and he fell fighting the barbarians because he was too good a European to use the barbarians against England, as England a hundred years before has used the barbarians against Ireland”.
Kettle was killed in action with ‘B’ Company of the 9th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in an attack on German lines on 9 September 1916, near the village of Ginchy during the Battle of the Somme. During the advance Kettle was felled when the Dublin Fusiliers were ‘struck with a tempest of fire’, and having risen from the initial blow, he was struck again and killed outright. His body was buried in a battlefield grave by the Welsh Guards, but the grave was subsequently lost trace of. His name is etched on the monumental arched gateway for the missing of the Somme at Thiepval. He was 36-years old.
The poet George William Russell wrote about Kettle, comparing his sacrifice with those who led the 1916 Easter Rising:
You proved by death as true as they, In mightier conflicts played your part, Equal your sacrifice may weigh Dear Kettle of the generous heart.
In 1997 Paul Street Plaza was renamed as Rory Gallagher Place and a memorial sculpture was unveiled. The unique bronze sculpture was created by Cork artist Geraldine Creedon in honour of Rory Gallagher, at the request of Cork Corporation and Rory’s family. The bronze sculpture takes the form of a guitar on one side, while the other side consists of intertwined lyrics from Rory’s Jinx album.
Rory Gallagher was an Irish blues-rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, and raised in Cork, Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste during the late 1960s. He was a talented guitarist known for his charismatic performances and dedication to his craft. Gallagher’s albums have sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide.Gallagher received a liver transplant in 1995, but died of complications later that year in London at the age of 47.
14 September 2021 in Dún Laoghaire the Roger Casement Statue was lifted into place at the end of the new jetty at the Dún Laoghaire Baths project, which was still under construction. The statue was commissioned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and commemorates Casement who was born in Sandycove in 1864, became an early international human rights campaigner and who was executed for his part in the 1916 Rising.
Speaking at the arrival of the sculpture to the site, An Cathaoirleach Lettie McCarthy, said: “I am delighted to see this sculpture of Roger Casement being lifted into place. It is a remarkable piece that will undoubtably become a focal point of interest. Its arrival also marks further progress on the redevelopment of the Dún Laoghaire Baths area.”