Forgotten Irish war dead honoured on Armistice Day

Dozens of Irish servicemen and women forgotten for decades after being buried in unmarked graves were finally remembered today at a poignant Armistice Day ceremony.

Forty three headstones were erected in Dublin's Glasnevin cemetery to the war dead who had lain unrecognised in unidentified plots.

Relatives of nine of the deceased as well as several war veterans braved stormy conditions to pay their respects at a special blessing of the graves and a wreath-laying.

Two Irish Catholic priests - Fr Francis Browne SJ and Canon Francis Gleeson - who served as army chaplains during the First World War were also remembered.

Margaret Betts, whose great uncle Patrick Duignan was among those commemorated, said it was an emotional moment for her years after finding out he was buried in an unmarked grave.

"I got very upset. I wanted to erect a stone myself but I wasn't allowed," she said.

Ms Betts said her father often talked about his older brother Patrick who died aged 21 after fighting with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in France during the First World War.

"I'm absolutely delighted now they've erected the headstone. I just wish my father knew that this has happened," she said.

David Domican, whose great uncle Richard Domican died aged 28 on his way to France while serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps, said Irish people had moved on since the days when serving in British troops carried a social stigma.

"When I was brought around the graves as a kid I probably walked by where he was buried and there was no marker, so it's very sad," he said.

"But it's nice that after all these years he's been remembered now. It's been a long time coming.

"I think a lot of people have moved on since then.

"My own view is every Irish person who joined the British Army had a different reason for doing it. I think any stigma attached to people like that is ridiculous."

Michael Cummins, 83, from Irishtown in Dublin, who served in the Royal Air Force in north Africa from 1943 to 1952, agreed the ceremony marked a changing of attitudes.

"I'm very proud to be here. We've definitely moved on, I'm glad they have got their day," he said.

"There was an atmosphere back then where you couldn't say you were in the British Army. You'd come home on leave in your civilian clothes."

Thomas McKenzie, from Ballymun in north Dublin, who served in the Royal Australian Regiment in the Korean War between 1952 and 1953, said: "These people should be recognised for what they did."

Some 205 unmarked graves of servicemen and women who served the Commonwealth in the First World War and Second World War have been identified at Glasnevin cemetery.

Headstones were erected for four of them for the first time last year and all of them are to be commemorated over the coming years.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, European Affairs Minister Dick Roche, British Ambassador to Dublin Julian King and German Ambassador Busso von Alvensleben were among those who attended the ceremony.

It was organised to coincide with the anniversary of Armistice Day, when peace returned to Europe at the end of the First World War.

The agreement between Germany and the Allies after four years of fighting took effect at the "11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918.