Legion of Mary memorial, Glasnevin Cemetery, with a carved dove and relief of the Virgin Mary, by Albert Power
Albert Power, Legion of Mary Memorial, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Photograph: Power family archive.
Last updated
Date
1930s–40s
Medium
Stone
Location
Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Collection
works

This memorial at Glasnevin Cemetery commemorates the Legion of Mary — the Catholic lay apostolic movement founded in Dublin in 1921 — and bears the Latin inscription LEGIO MARIAE across its shaft.

The monument is distinguished by a large carved dove with outstretched wings, set on a halo and a wreath, perched atop the cross — an unusual and striking element among the largely cross-and-headstone forms typical of the cemetery. Below it, a circular relief panel depicts the Virgin Mary, standing with arms extended in the manner of the Miraculous Medal iconography, set above a turned column resting on a large stone sphere.

The combination of dove, Marian relief, and devotional inscription marks this as a memorial closely tied to the Legion of Mary’s own visual symbolism, and it stands among the more iconographically distinctive of Power’s funerary commissions at Glasnevin.

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