The statue of the crucifixion of Jesus, officially known as the Monument of Christ the King, has been a subject of controversy since its unveiling in 1978. Despite the official plaque stating that it symbolizes three distinct aspects of Christ's life, many visitors and locals cannot see resurrection in the statue.
Rite & Reason: I keep meeting people who tell me that, no matter how hard they look, they can’t see resurrection anywhere in the statuehas long been proud of nudging the national interest towards the meaning of life.
It did this in the 20th century through its artists, writers and poets. And it has done so through the sculptor Andrew O’Connor. He has been all but overlooked althoughThe first day I saw it I was sure this was another anti-war monument. It is in fact a statue of the crucifixion of Jesus, officially known as the Monument of Christ the King – but it is not outside a church.
Rather, it stands high above Moran Park in the centre of town. With Dún Laoghaire being so doggedly nontraditional, the statue was placed in an open space so as to be ‘ecumenical. ’ The hundreds of visitors who now eat their quiet Sunday lunch in Moran Park may not notice the contortion of the monument or its tortuous journey to its current position above their heads.
The brave souls who climb the steps to scrutinise it can’t miss its enormity – it is 5.5m high and weighs 3½ tonnes. But they often come away baffled because the official plaque on the monument’s plinth tells us (in French, German, Spanish, English and Irish) that what we are seeing symbolises ‘three distinct aspects of Christ’s life’: ‘Desolation, the crucifixion under a darkening cloud; Consolation, Christ resurrected, restored, even youthful, with arms outstretched to console all mankind and; Triumph, Christ the King in majesty emerging from the tomb.
’ I keep meeting people who tell me that, no matter how hard they look, they can’t see resurrection anywhere in the statue. So, what was the sculptor thinking of? One observer recently said it looked like a still from midway through a film. Titanic dive widow: ‘We left London as a family of four and we returned as a unit of two’Aidan Turner: ‘I’d be sitting in the trailer going, ‘God Almighty.
Can you just give me a cop drama? ’’ Which raises the question – to begin with, why did the citizens of Dún Laoghaire decide in 1931 to put their money together ‘from persons of all religious denominations’ to get the statue forged in bronze? All political parties were represented in the Town Hall on the day in 1931 when the decision was made to commission the monument.
Then minister for finance, the prudent Ernest Blythe, even managed to squeeze enough money from the public purse to get the statue in position. The monument committee give us a glimpse as to their motivations in a 1932 fundraising booklet, which goes into detail about the site they wanted it to occupy. Foremost in their minds was the enormous fact of Dublin Bay.
Their booklet says: ‘The first duty of the Committee was the selection and acquisition of a site that would be suitable to the object in view. For that purpose it was necessary that it would permit of an uninterrupted view of the Monument to ships entering and leaving the harbour as well as those traversing the bay ...
It is to be associated with Royalty in a new and infinitely more exalted way, as if to show that all potentates, be they pagan or Christian, native or otherwise within the four seas of Ireland, must ever bend the knee to Jesus Christ, ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’
Monument Of Christ The King Sculpture Controversy Religion Art
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