THE LIVES of 43 forgotten Irish servicemen and women were commemorated yesterday.
Driving wind and rain accompanied the dedication of headstones at Glasnevin Cemetery to those who died in the services of the British army during the two world wars and were buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery.
“Welcome home” read the inscription of a wreath laid by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, although the cemetery had been the resting place of those commemorated for decades. A welcome was not what most of those commemorated had received when their remains came home, Glasnevin Trust chairman John Green said. They had left as heroes and came home “through the back door”.
He said changing attitudes to Irish men and women who had served in the British army were best summed up in an Irish Timeseditorial which said those soldiers were "part of our history too".
None of those commemorated had died in conflict. Instead, most departed as a result of illness or injury sustained during the wars, or through accidents.
A public appeal was issued last month and the relatives of nine of the dead came forward for yesterday’s service.
Glasnevin Trust’s historian Shane MacThomáis said the appeal had led to hundreds of Irish families coming forward to inquire about relatives who died in the first World War.
David Domican came to remember his grand-uncle, Pte Richard Domican of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who died of pneumonia in England on St Patrick’s Day, 1915, aged 28.
“I think it is sad that he has been in an unmarked grave for all these years, but he is getting the recognition today that he might not have got had he been in a marked grave,” he said.
Mary O’Shea and her daughter Mary Rochford came to remember their great uncle, Gunner PJ Geon of the Royal Field Artillery, who died in 1920 as a result of pleurisy, a disease common among soldiers gassed during the same war.
“He died on my father’s third birthday, and my husband was named after him. I’m delighted to be here today in memory of him,” Ms O’Shea said.
The ecumenical service was attended by Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the British ambassador Julian King, the German ambassador Busso von Alvensleben, and representatives of the Royal British Legion and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The commission is funding the headstones in keeping with its policy that every soldier who fought in the British armed forces during the two world wars has a memorial.
Also commemorated yesterday were two well-known Irish war chaplains, Canon Francis Gleeson, who served with the 2nd battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and the Jesuit priest and photographer Fr Francis Browne SJ, who served as a chaplain with the Irish Guards. Both are buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
The Turkish ambassador Altay Cengizer will be among the speakers at a conference on Ireland and the first World War in Collins Barracks tomorrow.
