Last Friday, 18th October, was a wet and cloudy day. But we didn’t let the bad weather put us off as we set off on an interesting class trip to the War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge.
The Gardens were built to commemorate the 50,000 Irish soldiers who died in World War I (1914-1918). It also commemorates those who died in World War II (1939 – 1945).
There are lots of interesting symbols in the Gardens. There are two miniature obelisk monuments like the Wellington Monument. They represent candles on the altar. We saw the four bookrooms which represent the four provinces of Ireland – Leinster, Connacht, Munster and Ulster. Inside the bookrooms,we saw handwritten books that include the names of all those who died in the war. The youngest was a 14 year old boy called John Condon. He lied about his age to get into the army, He should have been 17.
We saw that the trees are all planted in straight lines to represent the soldiers standing ready for battle. There are other trees planted at a higher level and these represent the captains.
We also noticed how the path got narrower as it went into the distance, like when we did our perspective drawing in art. We took some fun photographs using perspective.
Even though the weather wasn’t very nice, we had a great day and learned lots of interesting things. We asked the tour guide lots of great questions. Going on trips is a great way to learn about our area and history and geography.
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