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.
THE CHILDREN OF LIR AT THE GARDEN OF REMEMBRANCE PARNELL SQUARE DUBLIN
The Children of Lir is a legend from Irish mythology. It is a tale from the post-Christianisation period that mixes magical elements such as druidic wands and spells with a Christian message of faith bringing freedom from suffering.
Oisín Kelly was born as Austin Kelly in Dublin, the son of William Kelly, principal of the James Street National School, and his wife, Elizabeth (née McLean). He studied languages at Trinity College, Dublin. Until he became an artist in residence at the Kilkenny Design Centre in 1966, he worked as a teacher of Art, English, Irish and French from 1943 to 1964 at St Columba’s College, Dublin. He initially attended night class at the National College of Art and Design and studied briefly in 1948–1949 under Henry Moore.
He originally concentrated on small wood carvings and his early commissions were mostly for Roman Catholic churches. He became well known after he was commissioned to do a sculpture, The Children of Lir (1964), for Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance, opened in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. More public commissions followed, including the statue of James Larkin on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
He figures in five lines of Seamus Heaney’s second “Glanmore Sonnet”:
“‘These things are not secrets but mysteries’,/Oisin Kelly told me years ago/In Belfast, hankering after stone/That connived with the chisel, as if the grain/Remembered what the mallet tapped to know.”
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