Roadside memorials

Dr Una MacConville

The sight of bouquets of flowers taped to railings and lampposts is now a familiar sight to many motorists, marking the site of a sudden and tragic road fatality.
These ‘spontaneous shrines’ are considered not only an appropriate but also an expected response to tragedy.  These shrines may be an attempt to make a catastrophe more manageable; the creation of a shrine, the placing of flowers and candles can give people a sense of purpose (Grider 2001). These ‘shrines are generally temporary but in many societies more permanent memorials are placed.

It is these more permanent contemporary memorials that have now become a focus of study for historians, sociologists, folklorists and other scholars. Interviews with family members and friends of the deceased in a number of contemporary studies (Hartig and Dunn 1998, Everett 2002, Excell 2004) suggest that these roadside memorials have two main purposes; that of warning and remembrance.

In the UK, there appears to be a growing official opposition to the erection of memorials. At least four local authorities have told bereaved families not to lay flowers at the site of a fatal crash after a predetermined period of mourning, sometimes as little as two weeks, and they are seeking a ban on permanent roadside memorials (Gadher 2004). These restrictions are for ‘health and safety reasons’ and authorities are claiming they are acting on foot of advice from the police who fear the tributes, many near dangerous roads, could distract motorists. These restrictions have been considered ‘crass and insensitive’ by bereaved families and road safety campaigners, some of whom feel these memorials are being removed in order not to draw attention to the death toll on certain roads.

Dr Una MacConville of the Centre for Death and Society has carried out research on roadside memorials in Ireland where they are more clearly a continuance of a long-standing tradition of marking death in open places. Roadside memorials are not illegal and in many cases the erection of memorials is facilitated by local authorities. Roadside shrines and memorials, less than two meters high, are exempt from planning requirements subject to not causing a hazard (Fagan, 2004). The contrast in attitudes to roadside memorials from different authorities may also reflect the different views that are held about death, dying and remembering the dead. 
Roadside memorials are common on Irish roads. Permanent memorials have been erected in memory of people who have died in road traffic accidents, by suicide, by murder and those who have died in the War of Independence and the Civil War of the early twentieth century. A website, created by Jerry Cremins - www.irishroadside.com/ - has documented over five hundred roadside memorials and is regularly updated.

Una continues her research on roadside memorials and is now looking at the contested and problematic responses to roadside memorials in Northern Ireland.

Bibliography
Everett, H. (2002) Roadside crosses in contemporary memorial culture, Texas University Press, Austin.
Excell, G., (2004), Roadside memorials in the UK, Unpublished MA thesis, University of Reading.
Fagan, K. (2004)’What roadside shrines say to passing motorists’, The Irish Times, MotorNews, December 8.
Gadher, D. (2004) ‘Councils ban roadside shrines to crash victims’ The Sunday Times, October 24, p. 5
Grider, S. (2001) ‘Spontaneous Shrines: a modern response to tragedy and diaster’, New Directions in Folklore
Hartig, K. and Dunn, K. (1998) ‘Roadside Memorials: Interpreting new deathscapes in Newcastle, New South Wales’, Australian Geographical Studies, 36: 5–20.
MacConville, U. and McQuillan, R. (2005) ‘Continuing the tradition: roadside memorials in Ireland’. Archaeology Ireland 19:1, 26–30.