An Irishman's Diary

THE POPULARITY of the British royal visit took a dramatic upturn, in our house at least, with the news that it would force the children’s school to close next Wednesday. The problem is that the building shares a campus with the War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge, a key stop on the Queen’s tour. So the gardaí had a word, and now the school is one less thing they have to worry about on the day.

There’s plenty else to occupy them, God knows. Our neighbourhood is halfway between Islandbridge and Guinness’s Brewery – also on the royal itinerary – so we are now firmly in the grip of Operation Spanner, as it must be known. I refer to the ongoing sweep of underground utilities, which involves gardaí opening every manhole and hydrant along the route and, as in the old joke, looking into it, before sealing the cover and spray-painting the shape of a spanner over the join.

Maybe the spanner on the works (as it were) is a statement about the tightness of security. If so, I hope the optimism is justified.

But I hasten to add that preparations in Islandbridge are not all about preventing terrorism. There has been cosmetic work too. Unless it’s a coincidence that in recent days, along the approach road to the memorial gardens, carpets of new grass have been laid to cover the bald spots left by winter and parked cars.

It looks well, anyway. And if the authorities need other tips on improving the area’s appearance in advance of the Queen’s wreath-laying, I have a suggestion that also involves memorials of a kind, although not sweet-smelling ones. No. I mean the sort laid by local dogs on the park’s pathways, and on the otherwise lovely riverbank walk that stretches from Islandbridge to Chapelizod.

Such deposits are the bane of every walker, runner, and buggy-pusher’s life in this area. So maybe under cover of the royal security operation, pre-emptive internment could be introduced for any dog suspected of planning to crap on a public footpath in the park anytime soon. If the scheme works well, perhaps they could imprisoned indefinitely. It’s just an idea.

THE NEWgrass on the gardens' approach road may be a case of overcompensation for past sins. Because although Islandbridge is a perfectly named venue for Anglo-Irish conflict resolution, and although the war memorial is possibly the finest example of the genre in all of Europe, the history of the State's relationship with it has been as patchy as the grass margins were, before their facelift.

Conceived as a monument to the 49,400 Irishmen who died in the Great War, the planned gardens were at first enthusiastically embraced by the Free State. As both a tribute to the fallen and an attempt to maximise employment in hard times, construction was carried out by hand, under the design of the greatest architect of his time, Edwin Lutyens. And care was taken that the ex-military men employed to do it were drawn in equal numbers from both sides of the political divide.

But as the works progressed, the landscape changed in more ways than one. The new taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, was more conflicted about the project than his predecessor, although he still funded it. There were industrial relations problems too.

In a twist on the plan to have the massive stones hauled by hand (with the help only of old-fashioned wheels and pulleys), the War Veterans Organisation complained they were being treated like “slaves”. Their pay was 11 pence an hour, with a 47-hour week and only half an hour for dinner. Good conditions for slaves, in fairness, but not perhaps for working men in the 1930s.

Then there was the unfortunate timing of the project’s completion. In a bleak joke, fate ordained that this monument to the “war to end all wars” should be ready for official opening by the summer of 1939. In the event, the ceremony was postponed and it was 1940 by the time the first Remembrance Day rites were held there.

That apologetic start set the tone for decades of neglect, and worse. The gardens even suffered a couple of minor explosions in the 1950s as part of the IRA war on statues that, on the other side of the Liffey, saw the Earl of Carlisle (bronze version) blown off his pedestal in the Phoenix Park. And even when the memorial was not under attack, Dublin never quite embraced it. Then came the 1970s and early 1980s, when the gardens were allowed to slide into outright dereliction.

They were only finally rescued during the millennium celebrations of 1988. Since when they have been restored to something like their intended glory. And if the grass margins on the way in are anything to judge by, the gardens must be looking particularly well just now.

I say “must be” because I haven’t been in there for a while, although I did think about dropping by yesterday on a fact-finding mission. Unfortunately, the place is already under close Garda surveillance and the sight of a strange man hanging around taking notes would surely have attracted suspicion. Perhaps I could have explained myself eventually. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t want Operation Spanner to mistake me for a loose nut.