monuments ireland

More has been written about James Joyce than about Shakespeare.
The eldest son of a spendthrift who brought his large family from prosperity to poverty without relinquishing his standards, Joyce was educated by the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College, one of the finest private schools in the country, until the money ran out.
He was then offered a free place at Belvedere College in the centre of Dublin to continue his secondary education. Precocious in many respects, he had his fi...

The Lynch Memorial is situated near the Church of St Nicholas in the form of a black marble stone over a built-up Gothic doorway. It commemorates the - stern and unbending justice - of James Lynch Fitzstephen, Mayor of Galway in 1493, who found his own son Walter guilty of murdering a Spanish visitor and condemned him to death. When no one could be found to carry out the sentence, so the popular but dubious legend goes, the Mayor hanged his own son before retiring into seclusion....

In Fitzwilliam Square is the Halpin Monument , an obelisk of polished granite. This commerates Captain Robert C Halpin (1836 - 1894) , a Wicklowman who commanded the GREAT EASTERN, the ship that laid the first cable across the Atlantic....

There may have been an early Christian monastery in the valley where, according to tradition, St. Colmcille banished demons who enveloped the valley in a fog. The most conspicuous remains are the pillars decorated with cross-motifs and geometric designs which are now the  'stations of the cross' of the pilgrimage which takes place on the Saint's feastday on June 9th. The pillars are spread over an area in the valley 3.5 miles long and the pilgrimage takes as many hours to complete.
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This statue by stands in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Park, Eyre Square. It commemorates Padraic O'Conaire (1882 - 1928), a pioneer in the Irish Literary Revival in this century.

O'Conaire and Patrick Pearse are regarded as being the two most important Irish language short story-writers during the first decades of the 20th century....

Known as 'The Giant's Griddle' and recorded as such on the 1/2 inch O.S. Map, this handsome megalith is fairly well preserved despite forming part of a modern wall into which some of the cairn stones have been built. The chamber lacks at least one of its side stones, but the large capstone is still in position. A cupmarked stone is contained in the wall near the Griddle, and remains of a second tomb lie close by. This monument is not easy to find without asking directions locally, nor is...

A reminder of another war, culminating in the Fight for Independence can be seen at eyre Square. In a circular island stands a statue by Donal Murphy of Liam Mellows, the patriot who led one of the few military engagements outside Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916. The Liam Mellows Hurling Club, founded in 1934, is named in his honour....

Prehistoric landscape with a court tomb, wedge tomb, cairns stone circles and field walls reported to be the remains of a Stone Age settlement.
Nearby in Mullaboy Churchyard lies an ancient stone cross.

Location : Off Dungiven Road

Opening Hours: All year - Restricted to viewing from fenced area...

Alcock & Brown Memorial; Close to the ruins of the Marconi Radio Station is the spot where Alcock and Brown landed in Derrygimlagh Bog, at the end of the historic first non-stop trains-Atlantic flight in June 1919. A cairn has been erected nearby and on higher ground about 2.5Km away, a 4m limestone monument in the shape of an aeroplane has been erected to mark the historic achievement....

Despite its somewhat prosaic surroundings and the modern iron grating to fend off grazing sheep, this unique and beautifully decorated monolith is one of the great treasures of Celtic La Tene art in Europe. The style of the carving, in its Irish context, is assignable to the last three centuries BC.

The Turoe Stone is a domed granite boulder a little over 3 feet high, artificially shaped and decorated by a technique known as picking, which sets the design out in relief against the...