A new garden in a chateau in France is to commemorate the sacrifice of soldiers from Ireland and Northern Ireland during the First World War.
The Jardins de la Paix (Gardens of Peace) are a series of 15 gardens paying tribute to those who gave their lives in France between 1914 and 1918, one garden for each country.
Each garden is created in a place of conflict, from Passchaendale in Belgium to Vimy and Thiepval in northern France. The garden for Ireland is on the Somme, at the 14th century Chateau de Peronne – itself badly damaged while under German occupation during the First and Second World Wars.
The garden is being designed by award-winning Co Dublin designer Peter Donegan (www.doneganlandscaping.com), who has relocated to France to oversee the project. It transforms the dried-up moat, sunk nine metres below street level, into a garden full of trees, shrubs and perennials.
The garden divides naturally in two, one each side of the bridge over the moat. One side is designed for family and friends to spend time together under a canopy of fruit trees, while the other is full of flowers. Within the garden is a 12-metre long limestone seat, designed to resemble the iconic Dún Ducathair stone fort on Inis Mór.
Visitors will be encouraged to pick both flowers and fruit; ‘If we can get kids into the garden and there are no apples left o the trees or no flowers left to pick then I will consider my job to be done and this project to be a success,’ Peter said.
The garden will be the first of the 15 to be completed, and it’s hoped it will be finished and open to the public in late autumn, ready for the centenary celebrations marking 100 years since the end of the First World War.
