Sir, - Your issue of May 6th contains an excellent report by Dick Grogan on the service of Commemoration and Reconciliation held recently at Wexford Bridge in memory of all those who died there during the summer of 1798.
Commemorations should be healing, bonding experiences and should help us to focus on contemporary challenges. As Brian Cleary has reminded us, the bicentenary can help us to face the ghosts of the past. Thanks to the efforts of Comoradh '98, we have a much more accurate, balance and nuanced understanding of the events, the personalities, the lead-up to and the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion. It is now clear, for example, that people from all the Christian churches were involved on both sides during 1798 and many people from all the churches suffered and lost their lives.
In his superb address at the Wexford Bridge service, Patrick Comerford of The Irish Times rightly drew our attention to the fact that there are no memorials in Wexford to the key Church of Ireland personalities from the 1798 period. Specifically, he suggested that the recently reconstructed Wexford Bridge should be renamed in honour of the Church of Ireland Commander-in-Chief of the Wexford Army, Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey. In supporting that call could I suggest that with him be linked the name of that far-seeing and humane Roman Catholic from Castlebridge, General Edward Roche. Why not the Harvey/Roche Bridge?
Could I also congratulate The Irish Times on yet again being alone among the Irish print media in giving substantial and regular coverage to the 1798 bicentenary. - Yours, etc., Very Rev Walter Forde
The Presbytery, Castlebridge, Wexford.