In 2002, Dermot Morgan’s partner commissioned Galway-born sculptor Catherine Greene to design and produce a memorial statue.
Already a celebrity in Ireland, Morgan got his big break in Britain with Channel 4’s Irish sitcom Father Ted, which ran for three series from 1995 to 1998. Writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews auditioned many actors for the title role, but Morgan’s enthusiasm won him the part.
Father Ted focuses on the misadventures of three morally dubious Irish Catholic priests, whose transgressions have caused them to be exiled to the fictional Craggy Island, off the coast of County Galway.
This caught me by surprise today even though I visit the gardens on a regular basis I was unaware of this Human Rights Memorial.
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the “orthodox” inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish language (scholastic ogham, 6th to 9th centuries). There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster. The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names.
9 December 2020
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney T.D., today inaugurated a memorial monument in Iveagh Gardens alongside UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor, and Front Line Defenders Executive Director Andrew Anderson. It commemorates the lives of human rights defenders who have been killed because of their peaceful work defending the rights of others.
The Memorial was jointly initiated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Front Line Defenders to provide a physical space in the heart of Dublin city to recognise the important work of human rights defenders around the world, and pay tribute to the many brave and inspirational human rights defenders who have been silenced.
Designed by Grafton Architects, the monument is an Ogham garden, comprised of five standing stones, etched with ancient Irish Ogham script, each representing a native Irish tree. The space is enclosed by a crafted metal screen, on which are plaques, bearing the words of those who gave their most precious gift – their life – for their causes.
The plaques include the following words spoken by environmental and indigenous peoples rights defender Bety Cariño at a gathering of human rights defenders in Dublin Castle in February 2010. Two months later she was shot dead during a peaceful solidarity procession in Northern Oaxaca, Mexico.
“Today we want to live another history: we are rebelling and we are saying enough is enough. Today and here, we want to say that they are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them, because despite their threats, despite their slander, despite their harassment, we continue to walk towards a sun which we think shines strongly”.
At today’s launch in Iveagh Gardens, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said:
“The Irish government is proud of its partnership with Front Line Defenders in supporting and promoting the work of human rights defenders. This memorial will represent a place where Irish people, and those who visit our shores, can come and pay tribute to human rights defenders worldwide who have lost their lives in the peaceful pursuit of human rights and equality for all.”
Executive Director of Front Line Defenders, Andrew Anderson spoke about the legacies of the defenders:
“It is important to remember the peaceful defenders of human rights that the killers have tried to erase, but also to celebrate their lives and achievements. Natalya Estemirova, Floribert Chebeya and Bertha Caceres were murdered because they made a difference, and they continue to inspire a new generation of human rights defenders.”
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor stated:
“Between 2015 and 2019 the UN documented the killing of 1323 human rights defenders in 64 countries. It is shocking and unacceptable that human rights defenders have been killed in almost a third of all member States of the United Nations.”
Özlem Dalkiran, a human rights defender from Turkey attended the unveiling and spoke about her colleague and friend Hrant Dink, a human rights defender and journalist who was shot outside the offices of the newspaper where he worked in 2007.
“By killing Hrant, they couldn’t kill his dreams. On the contrary they helped the seed he sowed to grow much faster.”
Luke Kelly’s legacy and contributions to Irish music and culture have been described as “iconic” and have been captured in a number of documentaries and anthologies.
The influence of his Scottish grandmother was influential in Kelly’s help in preserving important traditional Scottish songs such as “Mormond Braes”, the Canadian folk song “Peggy Gordon”, Robert Burns’ “Parcel of Rogues”, “Tibbie Dunbar”, Hamish Henderson’s “Freedom Come-All-Ye”, and Thurso Berwick’s “Scottish Breakaway”.
The Ballybough Bridge in the north inner city of Dublin was renamed the Luke Kelly Bridge, and in November 2004 Dublin City Council voted unanimously to erect a bronze statue of Luke Kelly. However, the Dublin Docklands Authority subsequently stated that it could no longer afford to fund the statue. In 2010, councillor Christy Burke of Dublin City Council appealed to members of the music community including Bono, Phil Coulter and Enya to help build it.
Paddy Reilly recorded a tribute to Kelly entitled “The Dublin Minstrel”. It featured on his Gold And Silver Years, Celtic Collections and the Essential Paddy Reilly CD’s. The Dubliners recorded the song on their Live at Vicar Street DVD/CD. The song was composed by Declan O’Donoghue, the Racing Correspondent of The Irish Sun.
At Christmas 2005 writer-director Michael Feeney Callan’s documentary, Luke Kelly: The Performer, was released and outsold U2’s latest DVD during the festive season and into 2006, acquiring platinum sales status. The documentary told Kelly’s story through the words of the Dubliners, Donovan, Ralph McTell and others and featured full versions of rarely seen performances such as the early sixties’ Ed Sullivan Show. A later documentary, Luke Kelly: Prince of the City, was also well received.
In September 1988 a monument was erected to commemorate Kelly in the Larkhill area of Whitehall, where he had lived.
Two statues of Kelly were unveiled in Dublin in January 2019, to mark the 35th anniversary of his death. One, a life-size seated bronze by John Coll, is on South King Street. The second sculpture, a marble portrait head by Vera Klute, is on Sheriff Street. The Klute sculpture was vandalised on several occasions in 2019 and 2020, in each case being restored by graffiti-removal specialists.
A few years ago, while I was in the process of photographing this memorial, a passerby asked me why I was interested in a statue of an American soldier.
There are a number of memorials to Belfast’s Spanish volunteers, from this bronze statue at Writers’ Square, opposite St Anne’s Cathedral, to the plaque in The John Hewitt bar. Note: Hewitt and his wife, Roberta, took housed Basque refugees during the Spanish Civil War.
In the 1930s, nearly 1,000 Irishmen followed in the long tradition of foreign service by enlisting to fight in the Spanish Civil War; some fought with the Nationalist forces and others joined the Republicans.
The plaque reads:
Dedicated to the people of Belfast, the island of Ireland and beyond who joined the XV International Brigade to fight Fascism in the Spanish Civil War 1936 – 1939, and those men and women from all traditions who supported the Spanish working people and their Republic.
This sculpture was commissioned by the International Brigade Commemoration Committee and unveiled by Bob Doyle International Brigade veteran on 13th October 2007.
Sculpted by Anto Brennan. Erected by the Open Window Production Team. Gerard Brennan
Today I used a Canon 1Ds III which I obtained in 2007 and about a year later I realised that autofocus was defective I returned the camera a number of times for repair but the problem remained.
Later I began to notice overheating issues and that the images were noisy. Recently I had the option to obtain a number of suitable manual lenses at a very good price so I decided to see if the camera was usable in manual mode and I have been reasonably happy but today my close up shots of the Veronica Guerin bust at Dublin Castle were disappointing.
On the evening of 25 June 1996, Gilligan drug gang members Charles Bowden, Brian Meehan, Kieran ‘Muscles’ Concannon, Peter Mitchell and Paul Ward met at their distribution premises on the Greenmount Industrial Estate. Bowden, the gang’s distributor and ammunition quartermaster, supplied the three with a Colt Python revolver loaded with .357 Magnum semiwadcutter bullets. On 26 June 1996, while driving her red Opel Calibra, Guerin stopped at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross, on the outskirts of Dublin, unaware she was being followed. She was shot six times, fatally, by one of two men sitting on a motorcycle.
About an hour after Guerin was murdered, a meeting took place in Moore Street, Dublin, between Bowden, Meehan, and Mitchell. Bowden later denied under oath in court that the purpose of the meeting was the disposal of the weapon but rather that it was an excuse to appear in a public setting to place them away from the incident.
At the time of her murder, Traynor was seeking a High Court order against Guerin to prevent her from publishing a book about his involvement in organised crime. Guerin was killed two days before she was due to speak at a Freedom Forum conference in London. The topic of her segment was “Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk.”
Her funeral service, on 29 June 1996 at a church in Dublin Airport, was attended by Ireland’s Taoiseach John Bruton, and the head of the armed forces. It was covered live by Raidió Teilifís Éireann. On 4 July, labour unions across Ireland called for a moment of silence in her memory, which was duly observed by people around the country. Guerin is buried in Dardistown Cemetery, County Dublin.
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