Higgins attends Gallipoli commemoration

President Michael D Higgins yesterday joined Britain’s Prince Charles and Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan at commemorations to mark the 100th anniversary of the First World War battle on the Gallipoli peninsula.

“Tens of thousands of youths buried their futures in this land,” president Tayyip Erdogan told an international ceremony at the main Turkish memorial on the peninsula.

The fighting in Gallipoli, between April 1915 and January 1916, is estimated to have cost more than 130,000 lives on all sides, including 4,000 Irishmen fighting in Irish regiments, as well as in other British regiments and those from the various empire nations.

It is estimated that some 87,000 of the casualties came from the Ottoman side — before the Turks, under German command, finally repulsed an Allied campaign that was hampered by poor planning.

It would prove to be one of the Turks’ few successes in the war.

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“The Battle of Gallipoli is truly a reminder that the Great War was truly a world war... It destroyed old empires and created new fissures,” Charles said.

As part of the ceremony, Irish Company Sergeant Jim Aherne read out a letter home from an Irish soldier who was killed in action.

Captain Paddy Tobin of the D Company, 7th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, wrote the letter to his father on August 13, 1915. He would be killed in action two days later, aged 21.

President Michael D Higgins at the V-Beach cemetery, close to the area where the

majority of Irish casualties occurred.

Mr Higgins’s presence at the commemorations formed part of official visits to Turkey and Lebanon.

Yesterday morning, he left Istanbul for Çanakkale from where he travelled onwards to the Gallipoli peninsula.

He attended the Turkish commemoration ceremony at the Mehmetçik Monument before attending the commonwealth and Ireland commemoration at the Cape Helles Monument.

Mr Higgins then visited the cemetery at V-Beach, where many Irish casualties of the landings are buried. He will depart Istanbul on Sunday for Beirut.

Relatives of veterans of the Gallipoli campaign wave from an amphibious landing

craft as they approach the shore of Eceabat, Turkey, during commemorations.

Meanwhile, Arts Minister Heather Humphreys has launched a website exploring the Irish experience in the Gallipoli campaign.

“While well-remembered in the national stories of Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey, the Irish role in the Gallipoli campaign was largely forgotten over the decades,” she said.

“The Gallipoli campaign was followed so quickly by the 1916 Rising here at home that little focus was placed on the thousands of Irish men who were killed fighting on the front in Turkey.”

The website (pals-theirishatgallipoli.com) has been produced by Boston College, in a partnership with RTÉ and the Irish national cultural institutions, and has been funded by the Department of the Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht.

An Post has also issued two new stamps to commemorate the Gallipoli landings.

Designed by Dublin-based Vermillion Design, a 68c stamp shows a photograph of Irish soldiers in a trench at Gallipoli while a €1 stamp features the SS River Clyde, the landing ship which carried 2,000 of the 70,000-strong invasion force.

A special First Day Cover envelope shows Staff Sergeant William Cosgrove from Ballinookera, Co Cork, of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, who received the Victoria Cross for bravery during the ‘V’ Beach landings.

Additional reporting via Reuters

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