The war memorial window Sacrifice, Victory and Peace (1920) by AE Child (1875-1939) (Fig 1.) in St Philip’s Church of Ireland, Milltown, is a unique example of a collective expression of a parish mourning. Beginning on the 28th of January 1919, the Select Vestry began to consider a war memorial for St Philip’s Church to memorialise the nineteen individuals who died in the First World War (1914-1918) and were buried abroad. A stained glass window was agreed to be the most appropriate medium. To include the community in the process, a meeting was held on the 23rd of May 1919 to discuss the memorial with the parishioners and relatives of the deceased.
Sarah Purser’s (1848-1943) ground-breaking cooperative stained glass studio An Túr Gloine, The Tower of Glass, was chosen for this important commission in 1920. The studio was a popular choice among Church of Ireland communities.
St Philip’s windows are among the largest and most expensive war memorial windows produced by An Túr Gloine, costing £451 (approximately €30,000 today). The windows were paid for by 136 donors, parishioners and family members of the deceased, reflecting the importance of remembrance to the parish. AE Child’s designs for the three light windows and four roundels were approved by the Select Vestry on the 13th of February 1920. They were completed in the same year and dedicated to the church by the Archbishop of Dublin on the 28th of November 1920. They are typical of a war memorial window, portraying themes of death, sacrifice, victory and peace. The inclusion of the names of the nineteen individuals and a soldier in contemporary dress, however, creates a personal connection to the parish, rather than the more typical image of a medieval knight in shining armour. The design aligns with the advice for war memorials given by the Irish Builder, for a functional and simply decorative design made by Irish artists with Irish materials. Child includes the Déanta In Éirinn, Made in Ireland, trademark beside his signature (Fig 2), guaranteeing Irish production, however, not all of the materials were Irish.
Ultimately, Sacrifice, Victory and Peace stands as both a work of art and an object of memory, providing insight into Irish history when national identity, artistic innovation, and personal mourning converged.
This piece was written by Éadaoin Lee O’Rourke, a final year History of Art student in Trinity College. She has recently finished her dissertation titled ‘Remembering the Remembered: Catherine O’Brien and her window Valour, Resurrection and Charity (1919) window in Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny’. She hopes to promote the beautiful and unique Irish stained glass windows which can be found around the world.