War Memorial Gardens, Dublin

These gardens on the south bank of the Liffey at Islandbridge commemorate the Irish soldiers who died in the First World War. Designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens and completed in the 1930s, they feature sunken rose gardens, granite pavilions, fountains and a great cross of sacrifice. Two ornamental book rooms hold records of the fallen. For decades the gardens fell into neglect amid political sensitivities before being restored, and they now offer a formal, contemplative landscape overlooking the river and the city.