War Memorial

Lauren and myself are back in St John's for holidays. Last week we visited Bowring Park and saw the new memorial to the dead of World War I, a replica of the Beaumont Hamel memorial in France. It's nice to see the dead of World War I are still being remembered and that new memorials are being built. Normally the list of names on a war memorial can be a little impersonal, rows of name after name. Like masses of soldiers forming an army the names combine to become the memorial, but on the day we visited the memorial a photograph had been placed in a wreath just below the corresponding name on the memorial, George Stringer lost in HMS Viknor.

In Ireland we still have to come to term with our war dead. Prior to independence our troops fought in the British army, still a touchy subject. The War of Independence is not widely commemorated, thugs and criminals have hijacked the name Republican and events such as Easter 1916 so the media and general public have been too afraid to be Republican. Since independence we have been neutral, even sending condolences to the people of Germany on the death of Hitler because that was the neutral thing to do.

Hopefully when the 100th anniversary of World War I comes up in 5 years we will be ready to remember the cost paid by Irish soldiers from towns all over Ireland. We should be able to erect monuments in every town listing our war dead from all wars regardless of the political sensibilities of people living today.