"I thought it would be a good thing to follow John Redmond’s words. I thought for my mother’s sake, her gentle soul, for the sake of my own children, I might go out and fight for to save Europe so that we might have the Home Rule in Ireland in the upshot. I came out to fight for a country that doesn’t exist, and now, Willie, mark my words, it never will.”

Dublin and Wexford players have insisted they did not train on their recent trips to France and Portugal respectively.

French President François Hollande is to visit Ireland later this month, it emerged yesterday.

Many Irishmen working in England at the outbreak of World War 1 enlisted in English regiments. One was Thomas Kedian, of Moneymore, Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo, my grand-uncle.