In this small town, once known as Messines, a final stone will today be laid on a dramatic round tower memorial to the sacrifices of Protestant and Catholic Irishmen in Flanders fields.
The ceremony will also mark the culmination of an unusual NorthSouth collaboration between the former Fine Gael TD, Mr Paddy Harte, the loyalist, Mr Glen Barr, and the "Journey of Reconciliation" committee which inspired the project, largely funded by the International Fund for Ireland. Their achievement will be marked more publicly in November when Belgium's King Albert will be joined by the President, Mrs McAleese, and Queen Elizabeth for a memorial service.
Today's less formal occasions one for the builders and the young trainees from FAS and the North's Youth Training Programme who built the tower with stone brought from Mullingar workhouse.
It marks the battle in 1917 when, uniquely, the Protestant 36th Ulster Division and the Catholic 16th Irish Division fought side by side at huge cost to recapture the village of Messines.
Shells, bullets and shrapnel were found on the site of the 100ft tower. They have become mementos for the 60 people who worked here discovering, to their surprise, part of their lost common history, says Jarlath Hagan, the site manager. They come initially expecting a bit of craic and some hard work, he says, with little expectation of becoming engaged in the project. All leave after their six-week stint deeply committed to the project and moved by its history.
Of course, there's been craic, too, some of it in Redmond's of Loker, surely the smallest village in the world outside the oul' sod to have its own Irish bar. It is named after Maj William Redmond, brother of John, who died here and is buried in a small plot of his own beside the village's war cemetery. His nationalist family did not want him buried in a British graveyard.
