Tagore

The following was taken from The Journal on the 30th of May 2018 by Zara Hedderman (zara@thejournal.ie). Please visit the website to read the complete article and view the accompanying photographs. If you should ever find yourself in Dublin, dear reader, pay a visit to The Green and give a nod of respect to Mr. Tagore.

ON A PLINTH in St Stephen’s Green, in the company of figures including James Joyce, Constance Markievicz, Arthur Guinness and Theobald Wolfe Tone is a bronze bust of Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore...

He was commemorated in the Dublin park as a reciprocal gesture for a street in Chanakyapuir, Dehli that was named after Eamon De Valera, in 2007. The statue was unveiled in 2011 by former Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and India’s Minister for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur.

And that Irish connection? Notable admirers of Tagore’s work included William Butler Yeats, whom the poet met during one of his many trips to England in 1912.


Yeats was responsible for getting Tagore’s work translated to English, garnering a wider audience across the Western World. The Post Office, a play by Tagore was translated by Yeats and performed in The Abbey Theatre in October 1913....

A recurring theme throughout Tagore’s poems is an exploration of man’s connection with nature. The choice, then, of Stephen’s Green for the bust is fitting as the park is a popular destination for readers every summer.