Great War remembered in sculpture and light show
A SCULPTURE created from scrap metal depicting a weary soldier has been unveiled in Dublin to commemorate the centenary of the ending of the First World War.
Irish Culture Minister Josepha Madigan launched the art installation at a ceremony in St Stephen’s Green yesterday.
Created by Dorset-based artist and blacksmith Martin Galbavy and constructed by Chris Hannam of Dorset Forge and Fabrication, The Haunting Soldier is a 6m-high sculpture designed to evoke the fragility and suffering of those who survived the war and returned home to an uncertain and difficult future.
The ghostly figure was made from scraps of metal including horseshoes, spanners, car jacks and brake discs.
It will be on show until November 26.
Meanwhile, around 10,000 flames have filled the empty
moat encircling the Tower of London to mark the centenary.
A ceremonial Beefeater guard began the lighting ceremony by bringing a flame down from the tower into the moat, which had been submerged in smoke.
Dozens of representatives from the Armed Forces and volunteers then used the flame to ignite thousands of other torches staked into or placed on the ground underneath the tower, bathing the barren moat in light.
Midshipman Balraj Dhanda of the Royal Navy, a volunteer who helped light the flames, described the spectacle as “really, really powerful”.
Earlier, the Duke of Cambridge paid tribute to fallen submariners at a wreath-laying ceremony in central London.
Chaplain to the Submariners Association Rev Paul Jupp, who led the ceremony, urged those in attendance not to forget the sacrifice made by submariners.