The Belfast Cenotaph is a war memorial in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in Donegall Square West, to the west of Belfast City Hall. [1] [2] Like the City Hall, it was designed by Sir Alfred Brumwell Thomas. The cenotaph was unveiled in 1929. It became a Grade A listed building in 1984. [3]
The memorial includes a central Portland stone monument about 30 feet (9.1 m), with bronze brackets on either side supporting flagpoles. The top of the monument has carved laurel wreaths, symbolising victory and honour. [4] It bears several inscriptions: on the north side: "PRO DEO / ET / PATRIA // ERECTED BY / THE CITY / OF / BELFAST / IN MEMORY OF / HER / HEROIC SONS / WHO MADE / THE SUPREME / SACRIFICE / IN / THE GREAT WAR / 1914–1918 // THROUGHOUT THE LONG YEARS OF STRUGGLE WHICH / HAVE NOW SO GLORIOUSLY ENDED THE MEN OF ULSTER / HAVE PROVED HOW NOBLY THEY FIGHT AND DIE / GEORGE R.I." and on the south face: "THEY DEDICATED THEIR LIVES TO A GREAT CAUSE AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS BY LAND, SEA AND AIR WON UNDYING FAME". [5] [6]
The monument stands on three steps. To the south is an arc of paired Corinthian columns forming a 25 feet (7.6 m)–high colonnade. [4] To the north is a sunken garden of remembrance, which since 2011 has been the location for an annual Field of Remembrance. The paving of the garden was renewed in 1993.
The memorial was completed in 1927 and was officially unveiled by Viscount Allenby on 11 November 1929. [6] No Catholic organisations participated in the formal unveiling ceremony, but veterans from the 16th (Irish) Division laid a wreath after the ceremony ended, and participated the following year. [7]
In addition to the usual Remembrance Sunday services, there are also annual ceremonies to remember the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July. [8] Controversially, the first Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast Alex Maskey laid a wreath on 1 July 2002. [7]
Nearby are memorials to the service of Irish regiments in the Boer War and the Korean War, and to US forces who arrived in Northern Ireland in 1942. [5]
Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in November. Remembrance Sunday, within the Church of England, falls in the liturgical period of Allsaintstide.
A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenotaphs honour individuals, many noted cenotaphs are instead dedicated to the memories of groups of individuals, such as the lost soldiers of a country or of an empire.
The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square Gardens, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate civilian, merchant seafarers and fishermen who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The first, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1928; the second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled in 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant seamen who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005.
Green Island in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is an island at the junction of the Rideau River, just off Sussex Drive in Ottawa at the Rideau Falls at the confluence with the Ottawa River. It is situated near the neighbourhood of New Edinburgh.
Belfast City Hall is the civic building of Belfast City Council located in Donegall Square, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It faces North and effectively divides the commercial and business areas of the city centre. It is a Grade A listed building.
The Cenotaph is a war memorial constructed in 1923 and located between Statue Square and the City Hall in Central, Hong Kong, that commemorates the dead in the two world wars who served in Hong Kong in the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. Built in stone, it is an almost exact replica of the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, UK. It is listed as a monument under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance.
The Sydney Cenotaph is a heritage-listed monument located in Martin Place, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Bertram Mackennal and built from 1927 to 1929 by Dorman Long & Co. It is also known as Martin Place Memorial and The Cenotaph. It is one of the oldest World War I monuments in central Sydney. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 11 November 2009.
The Titanic Memorial in Belfast was erected to commemorate the lives lost in the sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912. It was funded by contributions from the public, shipyard workers, and victims' families, and was dedicated in June 1920. It sits on Donegall Square in central Belfast, Northern Ireland in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.
The Preston Cenotaph stands in Market Square, Preston, Lancashire, England, and is a monument to soldiers from Preston who perished in World War I and II. Unveiled on 13 June 1926, the memorial was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott with sculptural work by Henry Alfred Pegram.
Manchester Cenotaph is a war memorial in St Peter's Square, Manchester, England. Manchester was late in commissioning a First World War memorial compared with most British towns and cities; the city council did not convene a war memorial committee until 1922. The committee quickly achieved its target of raising £10,000 but finding a suitable location for the monument proved controversial. The preferred site in Albert Square would have required the removal and relocation of other statues and monuments, and was opposed by the city's artistic bodies. The next choice was Piccadilly Gardens, an area already identified for a possible art gallery and library; but in the interests of speedier delivery, the memorial committee settled on St Peter's Square. The area within the square had been had been purchased by the City Council in 1906, having been the site of the former St Peter's Church; whose sealed burial crypts remained with burials untouched and marked above ground by a memorial stone cross. Negotiations to remove these stalled so the construction of the cenotaph proceeded with the cross and burials in situ.
The Cenotaph is a war memorial on Whitehall in London, England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it was unveiled in 1920 as the United Kingdom's national memorial to the dead of Britain and the British Empire of the First World War, was rededicated in 1946 to include those of the Second World War, and has since come to represent the Commonwealth casualties from those and subsequent conflicts. The word cenotaph is derived from Greek, meaning 'empty tomb'. Most of the dead were buried close to where they fell; thus, the Cenotaph symbolises their absence and is a focal point for public mourning. The original temporary Cenotaph was erected in 1919 for a parade celebrating the end of the First World War, at which more than 15,000 servicemen, including French and American soldiers, saluted the monument. More than a million people visited the site within a week of the parade.
The Grand Parade is an historic military parade square dating from the founding of Halifax in 1749. At the north end of the Grand Parade is the Halifax City Hall, the seat of municipal government in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality. At the south end is St. Paul's Church. In the middle of Grand Parade is the cenotaph built originally to commemorate the soldiers who served in World War I.
Southampton Cenotaph is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in Watts Park in the southern English city of Southampton. The memorial was the first of dozens by Lutyens to be built in permanent form and it influenced his later designs, including the Cenotaph in London. It is a tapering, multi-tiered pylon which culminates in a series of diminishing layers before terminating in a sarcophagus which features a recumbent figure of a soldier. In front is an altar-like Stone of Remembrance. The cenotaph contains multiple sculptural details including a prominent cross, the town's coat of arms, and two lions. The names of the dead are inscribed on three sides. Although similar in outline, later cenotaphs by Lutyens were much more austere and featured almost no sculpture. The design uses abstract, ecumenical features and lifts the recumbent soldier high above eye level, anonymising him.
Rochdale Cenotaph is a First World War memorial on the Esplanade in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in the north west of England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is one of seven memorials in England based on his Cenotaph in London and one of his more ambitious designs. The memorial was unveiled in 1922 and consists of a raised platform bearing Lutyens' characteristic Stone of Remembrance next to a 10-metre (33 ft) pylon topped by an effigy of a recumbent soldier. A set of painted stone flags surrounds the pylon.
The Arch of Remembrance is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in Victoria Park, Leicester, in the East Midlands of England. Leicester's industry contributed significantly to the British war effort. A temporary war memorial was erected in 1917, and a committee was formed in 1919 to propose a permanent memorial. The committee resolved to appoint Lutyens as architect and to site the memorial in Victoria Park. Lutyens's first proposal was accepted by the committee but was scaled back and eventually cancelled due to a shortage of funds. The committee then asked Lutyens to design a memorial arch, which he presented to a public meeting in 1923.
Northampton War Memorial, officially the Town and County War Memorial, is a First World War memorial on Wood Hill in the centre of Northampton, the county town of Northamptonshire, in central England. Designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, it is a Stone of Remembrance flanked by twin obelisks draped with painted stone flags standing in a small garden in what was once part of the churchyard of All Saints' Church.
Norwich War Memorial is a First World War memorial in Norwich in Eastern England. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the last of his eight cenotaphs to be erected in England. Before Lutyens' involvement, several abandoned proposals had been made for commemorating Norwich's war dead, and by 1926 the newly elected lord mayor was determined to see the construction of a memorial before he left office. He established an appeal to raise funds for local hospitals in memory of the dead as well as a physical monument. He commissioned Lutyens, who designed an empty tomb (cenotaph) atop a low screen wall from which protrudes a Stone of Remembrance. Bronze flambeaux at either end can burn gas to emit a flame. Lutyens also designed a roll of honour, on which the names of the city's dead are listed, which was installed in Norwich Castle in 1931.
The National Service of Remembrance is held every year on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London. It commemorates "the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts". It takes place on the second Sunday in November, the Sunday nearest to 11 November, Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of hostilities in the First World War at 11 a.m. in 1918.
The County Fermanagh War Memorial stands in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It was originally constructed to commemorate the men of the town killed during the First World War, particularly those serving with the local regiments, the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. It was later altered to also commemorate those killed in the Second World War.