Embracing our diaspora - How can we honour the forgotten?

One hundred years ago today, Dave Gallaher died at the Battle of Passchendaele. He was born in Donegal in 1873. 

His father was a shopkeeper, his mother a teacher, so the family was hardly uncomfortable. When Dave was five years old, the family emigrated to New Zealand where his mother Maria again taught; she died in 1887 leaving 11 children.

So far this family’s story seems representative of the ordeal faced by many Irish emigrant families a century and a half ago.