Ireland's commemoration of World War 1 since the 1920s(2)

In Athy where 223 men from the town and the surrounding district died during the 1914/18 war, I joined a few friends on Remembrance Sunday 1986 to publicly commemorate for the first time in over 50 years the local men who had died in that war.  The ceremony was held in St. Michael’s cemetery where six World War I soldiers who died at home were buried and I am proud to say that the Remembrance Sunday commemorations have been held every year since then, with ever growing numbers attending. 

 

It is often claimed that commemorations in the North of Ireland were organised for many years on religious or political grounds.  For many Catholic families who had lost sons or fathers in the war, collective commemoration in public was not deemed appropriate, particularly in nationalist areas of Belfast.  For many Catholics in the North the 1914/18 commemoration were viewed as loyalist events and the war itself as a futile conflict to be ignored.  Participation in the annual commemoration events was seen as a badge of loyalty.  The divergence of opinion was noticeable from the first Armistice Day commemoration held on the 1^st of November 1919 when in Belfast businesses stopped for two minutes silence at 11.00 a.m.  At the same time there was no mass observation in Derry city.  In Dublin a demonstration was held on that first anniversary, but it was accompanied by rowdy scenes, with clashes between Unionist and Nationalist supporters.  The newspapers reported ‘hardly had the Trinity students concluded the singing of “God Save the King” when a crowd of young men, mostly students from the National University, appeared in College Green shouting and singing “the Soldiers Song”.  A scene of wild disorder followed.’ 

 

In 1966 the Taoiseach Sean Lemass, a one time critic of remembrance ceremonies in Ireland acknowledged that Irish men who had enlisted in the British Army during World War I ‘were motivated by the highest purpose and died in their tens of thousands in Flanders and Gallipoli believing they were giving their lives in the cause of human liberty everywhere, not excluding Ireland.’

 

One of the first cross community approaches in Northern Ireland in re-telling the 1914/18 war story in a bipartisan way was the 1993 publication by the West Belfast Youth and Community Development Project which told of the Somme story as one involving both the 36^th Ulster Division and the 16^th Division.  It was after all the Battle of the Somme which brought Republican and Loyalists together as one and where both traditions suffered huge losses fighting in a common cause.  Despite this the Somme had always been seen by Loyalists as a 36^th Ulster Division conflict which was highlighted on many orange lodge banners as central to loyalism.  The 1993 project recognised Republican involvement and losses on the Somme for what was the first time in the North’s modern history.

 

The IRA ceasefire in 1994 prompted the SDLP in Belfast to attend as a body for the first time Remembrance Sunday commemorations in that city.  That same year the SDLP took part in commemoration ceremonies in Armagh, Omagh and Enniskillen.  The SDLP Mayor of Derry, John Kerr, was the first Mayor to lay a wreath during the 1995 ceremonies in Derry and two years later Belfast’s first nationalist Mayor, Alban Maginness participated in the city’s remembrance ceremonies.  He was accompanied by the Lord Mayor of Dublin when laying a poppy wreath during the Somme commemorations on the 1^st of July. 

 

The first cross border approach to joint commemoration resulted in the opening of the Irish Peace Park at Messines in 1998 by the English, Irish and Belgium Heads of State.  This was an initiative by Glen Barr and Paddy Harte, a Fine Gael T.D.  The park with the round tower commemorates Loyalist and Republican involvement at Messines in June 1917 when they fought side by side as part of the 10^th, 16^th and 36^th Divisions.

 

Perhaps one of the most far reaching participations in Remembrance Sunday events in recent years was that of Belfast’s first Sinn Fein Mayor Alex Maskey in 2002.  His participation and that of all the other participants previous mentioned was a long overdue recognition that people from both traditions shared the losses and sacrifices which marked the 1914/18 war.

 

The renewal of interest in commemorating the dead of World War 1 has seen the establishment of a Western Front Association in 1980 and the setting up of branches of the Dublin Fusiliers Association in Dublin and Belfast.  The Somme Association set up in 1990 provides a platform for the communities in Northern Ireland to share a common heritage – a heritage of loss and sacrifice endured by the men from Northern Ireland of the 16^th and 36^th Divisions.

 

Nevertheless, First World War commemorations will remain for many a controversial subject for some time to come given its roots and the complexities of what is a contested past.

Ireland's commemoration of World War 1 since the 1920s(1)

Men and women from both parts of the island of Ireland played prominent parts in World War I.  Their response to the call for volunteers was a cross community response.  However, when it came to commemorate and remember the awful events of those troubled years the community’s response in the South and in the North of this island were radically different.

 

Here in the South World War I commemorations during the 1920s and early 1930s were largely confined to participants who had returned from the war.  Armistices Day parades were somewhat muted affairs in the South and in Athy these parades were not actively supported by the local population.  However, it was accepted that the men who had gone overseas should be allowed to commemorate their colleagues who fell in battle.  It was an ambivalent attitude by the local population whose church and civic leaders during the war years had actively encouraged local men to enlist.  Many did enlist – Athy earning for itself the oft repeated claim of having given proportionately more men to the war than any other town in Ireland.  ‘Do as Athy has done’, urged the recruitment officers as they sought to swell the ranks during the final years of the war.

 

Despite this, World War I commemoration in Athy and generally throughout Southern Ireland was always problematic.  19^th July 1919 was designated ‘Peace Day’ in Britain and plans were made to mark the day in Dublin.  A large parade was organised to start from Dublin Castle and included a large number of demobilised soldiers and sailors organised by regiment and led by their former officers.  The Dublin newspapers reported however that upwards of 3,000 Irish Nationalist Veterans boycotted the event and also reported that ‘some cheers were raised as demobilised soldiers passed, but the regular troops were received by the most part in silence.’  Later that evening scuffles broke out in the city between Sinn Fein supporters and some of the participating soldiers, a clear indication that war commemoration in the capital city challenged cultural and political allegiances.

 

The subsequent Armistice commemorations in Dublin also led to disorder as it did in the following years.  On 11^th November 1923 and 1924 a temporary cenotaph was erected in College Green outside Trinity College and a large crowd attended to mark the anniversary.  Fighting between Nationalists and ex-service men prompted the Garda Commissioner to refuse permission for College Green to be used again.  In 1925 the commemoration moved to St. Stephen’s Green and a year later to the Phoenix Park where it was held for the next decade.  Following the election of a Fianna Fáil government in 1932 and the start of the economic war it became less easy to continue the Remembrance Sunday commemorations and the annual ceremonies ceased in and around the mid-1930s. 

 

In July 1919 it was agreed to erect in Dublin a Great War Memorial home to be used by ex-servicemen.  This did not meet with official approval and the plan was dropped but in the meantime it was agreed to have some form of a war memorial erected.  Funds were contributed by the public and approximately £42,000 was collected.  £5,000 of those funds was used to publish ‘Ireland’s Memorial Records’ of which 100 copies of the eight volume set were printed and distributed to all the principal libraries in Ireland.  A further £1,500 was spent on replacing wooden crosses with stone crosses on battlefields where the Irish Divisions had fought. 

 

In 1924 a committee was formed to consider proposals for a permanent memorial in Dublin to Irish men and women killed in the First World War.  The committee suggested Merrion Square and later St. Stephen’s Green as suitable memorial sites.  Public opposition to these proposals prompted the Irish government lead by W.T. Cosgrove to set up its own war memorial committee. 

 

Eventually the war memorial committee completed its work and a site at Islandbridge across the River Liffey opposite the Phoenix Park obelisk about 3 kilometres from O’Connell Street on grounds not too far distant from Kilmainham Jail was chosen.  Work on the Islandbridge Memorial started in 1932 but it was not until 1938 that it was completed.  The Islandbridge memorial park designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens is one of four gardens in Ireland designed by this world famous architect and is not only a place of remembrance but also of great architectural interest and beauty.  An official opening planned for July 1939 was postponed indefinitely due to the threat of war. 

 

 

From 1940 to 1970 the British Legion held annual Armistice Day ceremonies at Islandbridge.  Because of the troubles in the North the Park memorial was closed between 1971 and 1988.  It only reopened in 1988 in response to criticism of the Irish government’s attitude to World War I remembrance in the face of the Enniskillen bombings of the previous year. 

 

Another six years were to pass before the Islandbridge memorial park was formally opened in 1994 and for the first time an Irish government minister attended with the then Minister for Finance, Bertie Aherne, representing the Irish government.

……………….TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK…………..